


Lionforge

by Malgriff



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Romance, lion king AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malgriff/pseuds/Malgriff
Summary: Brigitte Lindholm is one of Overwatch's newest recruits but forces are in play to take it down. Will she step up and be it's shield or step away?





	1. The day they arrived.

**Author's Note:**

> my first fanfic in a long while, but the idea came about from being unable to stop imagining Junkrat and Roadhog being Timone and Pumba. Also Brigitte is like super goddamn lovable I had to. Enjoy this nonsense.

Reinhardt wasn’t kidding, it was swelteringly hot out here. After weeks of insisting she come with him after the recall Brigitte had finally got him to agree and bring her along to meet the old team. Hoping she’d stay out of trouble at the base, not that she usually gave him trouble. As his squire she’d been a big help in the field, though that was all small scale compared to what he was sure Overwatch would have them getting up to. 

The two were walking up the road from the helipad, after being dropped off. Torbjorn runs after them, coming out from his workshop and Brigitte beamed like the sun high above them, kneeling down to catch her father in a bone crushing hug. “Papa! I thought you were staying home for another week?”

“Bah! An’ miss my baby coming to join the team!? No, no no.” He chuckled and stepped back, looking up at Reinhardt. “An I hope you haven’t been slacking old man.”

“Haha! Reinhardt never slacks. We have been vigilant and attentive. Not a moment to be slacking.” The two started chatting a mile a minute, ribbing one another and retelling tales. Brigitte followed behind, honestly happy to be with her two favorite people in the world. 

 

There were a few people milling about outside the base, a few faces Brigitte recognized in passing and a few faces she could put names to. She was waving to a couple of people who had noticed them then yelped ad Reinhardt lifted her by the armpits and began yelling. “AND PLEASE WELCOME OUR NEWEST MEMBER OF OVERWATCH! BRIGITTE LINDHOLM!” 

Clearly she missed the small crowd gathering around Reinhardt, and asking questions, and now was thoroughly embarrassed. She covered her face at being picked up like a little kid, despite the cheers and nervous laughing from the crowd. 

“Reinhardt!” The feminine voice cut through the noise and Brigitte looked over, feeling relief seeing Angela Ziegler coming towards them. “That’s quite enough, now put her down before you hurt yourself or Brigitte.” He did as told, putting her back down so Angela could give Brigitte a hug. “Welcome Brigitte, it’s been a long time. We’ll be glad to have you on board. I’ve heard great things about you.”

“Ah. Good to see you again Angela.” Brigitte returned the hug, and looked back at Reinhardt who was beaming as proudly as ever. “I hope to live up to those great stories.”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine. We’re a little short on hands at the moment, but your rooms are ready. I’m sure you’ll both appreciate a good rest. Winston is handling inductions for new recruits, being very careful of course. We have some interesting newcomers, I’m sure you’ll get along very well with them Brigitte.”

They spoke happily as they made their way inside, Reinhardt clapping her hard on the shoulder before splitting off to say hello to some old friends while Angela lead her down the corridors to a large room where a bright pink Mech stood in the centre, with the top missing and a slight woman perched on top with a tool belt and around her waist and long brown hair. She looked over as the door opened and waved. 

“Brigitte.” Angela held up her hand. “May I introduce you to Hana Song, Korea’s best Meka pilot and now part time Overwatch member.” 

Brigitte was shocked to say the least. She’d kept abreast of the news and of course Reinhardt's was a superfan, surprisingly, so she already knew quite a bit about the legendary D.Va.   
“Pleased to meet you!” She saluted, then felt kind of silly, but stuck to it. Hana giggled and approached, offering her hand to shake, which Brigitte did, eagerly. 

“Likewise. Always happy for another player to join.”

Brigitte blinked, a little taken aback, but offered a smile anyway. “Uh Play-right. Sorry my gamer speak isn’t uh fluent.” 

Hana smiled back and gave a brief nod. “That’s alright, it’s habit more than anything don’t mind it too much. You’ll pick it up.” 

_____________________________________________________

 

Training began almost immediately, the next morning Brigitte was woken to Athena’s voice over the intercom in the room and ran for the training hall, only just barely dressed in her work out gear. Comfortable sweats and her favourite vest shirt. 

She could see Reinhardt already standing up front and Hana had joined them, though she looked a little nervous when out of her Meka. Lenna zipped into the line as well, and gave Brigitte a nudge to wave good morning before a gruff voice got their attention. 

“Listen up troops, while we’re at this base we need to be on our guard at all times. Legally we should not exist, but.” Jack looked over to Winston who quickly hid a jar of peanut butter behind his back. “Seems things are going on with the world that we need to deal with, weather the world likes it or not.”

After a long speech about keeping secrecy and being on top form, Reinhardt took over, moving Jack aside with his large hand. “Thank you Commander, now I know some of you have been fighting already so we’re going to be sparring today. Unarmed.” He Added, seeing Lenna reach for her pistols, then put them away sheepishly. “Winston you too.”

“What?!” 

Reinhardt gave the gorilla a stern look and Winston lumbered over and joined the line looking very grumpy. “You’ve been slacking my friend, we need something to get the blood pumping yeah??!” 

He had the group running laps of the unkempt gym, while Torbjorn and Reinhardt moved things out of the way and pulled out some equipment. Lenna was miles ahead, till Reinhardt called her out on using the accelerator. Brigitte was used to running and hiking for miles with him across country before now, and Winston was lagging a little behind Hana who was keeping pace a little behind Brigitte. 

Once everyone had worked up a little sweat and was ‘loosened up’ Reinhardt had them pair off. Brigitte was against Winston and Lenna was fighting Hana. 

Winston had quite a size advantage on Brigitte but she was holding her own, and she felt Winston was holding back. She tried calling him on it but he just wouldn’t go full out, she ended up throwing him across the room into the crash mats. Just in time to see Lenna thrown into his stomach with two loud yelps, both winded. 

“HAHA! Well done! Alright, Winston Lenna take five. Brigitte, Hana you two now. I want a good clean fight.”

After two minutes, clean fighting went out the window. Hana was quicker than Brigitte but Brigitte had way more stamina. They were both panting and sweating and Rein had yet to call the match, watching proudly. Brigitte swung high but missed Hana by inches as the smaller woman ducked then tackled her from beneath, and what surprised Brigitte wasn’t the strength that knocked the wind out of her, but that she felt herself leaving the ground and suddenly slammed into the ground from a very surprising suplex, perfectly pulled off. She stared up at Hana who was glaring down at her and she could feel her mouth go dry and her cheeks, that were pink even before, now were glowing red. 

Hana relaxed and began to giggle. “Pinned you! GG.” She sat up and offered Brigitte her hand, helping her up. 

Reinhardt clapped them both on the shoulders, laughing harder than she’d heard him in months. “I knew I’d like the new recruits! So much strength and energy.” Hana flushed a little pink and rubbed her her shoulder, which had taken a few knocks. 

Jack returned and nodded. “Alright, training is over, go get yourself cleaned up and fed. Afterwards we have a few more orders of business to get to.”


	2. New territory

It felt good to be out of the base for a change and exploring the area, walking with Reinhardt felt like second nature. The two were learning the area the old fashioned way, as he put it. Rein had fallen back into his mentor role, and pointed out various spots where you could get a good view around places, and which roads went where, since signs had been taken down to stop civilians entering too close to the base. 

Brigitte was still not used to the heat and hadn’t even put her armour on but brought her shield and mace at Reinhardt’s request, just in case. Lena was zipping around them acting as a scout, but Brigitte knew she was looking for a cell signal so she could call Emily. The woman had been frantic for days trying to get in contact without using the base’s internet access or phone line, for ‘security’ reasons. She could see her chatting away happily just up ahead on a hilltop. 

They had just caught up when Reinhardt’s comms buzzed. His face fell and he looked at the two with concern. “Head back to the base Brigitte, Lena come with me.” Lenna nodded and said her goodbyes to Emily while Brigitte looked a little shocked. 

“But Rei-”  
“No Brigitte, you’re out of your armour. Get back to the base and wait for us, tell the others we’ll be back shortly.” He sounded stern and it made Brigitte take a step back. His face softened and he put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll get your chance soon, but the base needs protecting too.”

She understood but it still stung a bit that he didn’t want her with him this time, even after all she’d been through in the field. She sighed and headed back, giving Lena a small smile, Lena gave a sympathetic look back and saluted. “Don't’ worry luv We’ll come back safe I promise.” Then she zipped away following Reinhardt. 

She took her time returning, just in case she was called back to help, but no call came. Winston looked up from his desk as she walked by and asked. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, Reinhardt’s on it with Lena, what is going on anyway? He didn’t say.” She asked, leaning against the desk, arms folded. Winston looked a little sheepish and busied himself with moving things around. “You can’t tell me can you?” She added, seeing he was struggling to come up with an excuse. 

“Uh..no no I can’t. Uhm. Sorry. Oh Hana was asking if uh when you got back if you’d like to help with the Meka or..uh.” He frowned and looked over the scribbled note. “If you would play,..I’m not saying this.” He handed the note over, which Brigitte took and read the name of the game, raising an eyebrow. 

“Dance dance titan...huh didn’t think that was out yet. Thanks Winston.” She smiled at the note and pocketed it, heading to her room. 

She got about four steps in and fell forward onto the bed and groaned. It wasn’t fair, she’d been working under Reinhardt for years, she’d fought with him when needed, could fix up his armour and patch up his wounds faster than anyone she knew, save for maybe Angela, but Angela was no mechanic. 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sulking but she heard the door open and she turned around to see Hana peeking in. “Did Winston give you my message? I really wanna play co-op it’s more fun that way and I got it set up in the workshop..you ok? Did something happen?”

Brigitte sat up and put her arms over her knees, looking at the floor. “I got sent back while Rein and Lena got sent off for something that we’re not supposed to know about. Just...feels like I’m being treated like a kid again.” 

Hana listened and thought for a moment, not really sure what to tell her. She was used to defending cities and flying solo or with her team, but here she wasn’t being given much to do either but she understood they were newbies to this particular style of doing things and so would have to wait to be called into action. So she switched to distraction and tackled Brigitte onto then rolled off the bed, landing on top of her as she had in training. “Pinned ya, now come play with me it’s very important team bonding! Not to mention a good, and more fun, workout. Please?!” 

“Oof!” Brigitte felt the wind knocked out of her, wondering where this whippet of a woman got her strength from and put her hand on Hana’s face, smooshing it trying to push her away. “Alright let me up.” They got up and Brigitte got a wicked grin on her face as Hana started to walk out and grabbed her from behind and attempted to throw her back onto the bed but ended up on her back on the floor again when Hana ducked and swept her legs from under her. She really needed to find out how she could do that. “Oof!” 

She could hear Hana giggling and running out into the hallway. She got up once more, rubbing her shoulder and following after. Catching up as they got to the workshop, things had been moved aside and a tv on the wall was showing the title screen to the game Hana had set up. Flashing Neon colours and arrows pulsed as a silhouette of a dancing omnic moved in the background. “So how’d you get this early?”

“Lucio worked on some of the songs and sent me a few copies, some to give away on my livestream and one for me to try out. So think you can beat me?”

Brigitte grinned again. “I love these games, Every time we find one I always try em out. I think I can give you a run for your money.”

The challenge given, the two started up their song selections and took their positions on the dance pads, ready and began moving in tandem, stomping on the flashing arrow pads to the rhythm on the screen. They went through one song after another, Hana doing better at half the songs, and Brigitte doing better on the others. Time slipped away from them and after a few hours were startled seeing Reinhardt and Lena show up at the workshop door. Hana paused the game while Brigitte ran over to help Rein into the charging station and helped him out of the armour. Lena looked a bit disheveled but mostly alright. Rein’s armour looked like it had taken a beating which she could fix in a jiffy but she was concerned nonetheless. 

Winston had ordered some pizza for the evening since no one had gone out to get proper food in a while and people were a little too tired to go this late. Reinhardt had given his report then informed the rest of the basic details. Something or someone had breached a fence on the far edge of their landing site so he’d gone to clear it off. Never said what or who though. Which worried Brigitte more since he loved telling stories. 

The food was good though and filling, and everyone got something they liked. The mood lightened up, and since word got around that Hana had a game installed a few asked to take a turn on it. 

Jack stubbornly refused but cheered on Angela, Torbjorn gave up halfway through a song. Winston tried but he could hit all four pads with ease so it wasn’t much of a challenge for him.   
Lenna was showing off zipping between the two player pads, but put on a good show anyways. 

Happy, fed and tired, everyone retreated to their rooms for the night. Brigitte said goodnight to Hana, and was unsure if she should go for a hug or just wave. It felt odd, she ended up getting a hug from Hana who rushed inside to start up another game. Leaving Brigitte to return to her room. Once she’d cleaned up and got her pajamas on she collapsed onto her bed once more, she could hear her phone buzz for a moment and groaned, not wanting to answer it just yet, besides whoever it was could call if it was urgent. 

Sometime in the night, long after midnight Brigitte woke up to her phone buzzing again and she grumbled, snatching it up to read what was being texted. ‘Incoming.’ She frowned and looked at the next message, a little worried there was no number as a sender. The next one was a file and she wasn’t sure she wanted it on her phone. “Athena, can you scan my phone please?” She asked the base’s built in A.I. 

“Of course one moment.” Brigitte put on the lamp beside her bed and sat up, waiting for a few minutes and brushing her hair back into place and re-tying her ponytail.

“Complete. No viruses or malware detected. Would you like me to open the file?”   
“Please.” She responded, pulling a particularly tough tangle out of her hair. 

A light hologram came up from her screen, showing video of the base from above. She frowned and picked it up turning it to figure out where it was being taken from. “What?” 

Athena pulled the hologram from the phone and enlarged it for brigitte who watched as people came in and out of the base, she could see the lights from the workshop doorway and felt a rock plummet in her stomach. Was someone spying on the base? She checked and found there was a security camera at the same position as the video. So who sent it? 

She spotted a flicker of purple. “Athena rewind a few seconds...ok slow it down please.” She saw the flicker again and a shadow of a woman moved passed the camera before it faded to static. “This is bad right, Athena?”

“I will show this to Winston at once, remain here for now.”

She sighed and sat back down awaiting a decision on what was to be done. However she soon fell back asleep and could not hear people moving through the corridor after being shown the footage.


	3. Omnic graveyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a friend point out that some things didn't add up so I made some edits, I hope you guys are at least enjoying the story so far. I have no time frame for when the next update will be as I tend to write when the inspiration strikes. Have a good one~

Security had more than doubled in the last few days. Winston and Torbjorn were erecting turrets on any surface with the room for one. Torbjorn had even brought Bastion from home and let him patrol the base at his will, it was nice to see the oddly domesticated omnic weapon again, and Brigitte often found it picking tiny flowers when it could find them, or sticks and things to help his little bird friend with nest making. 

Jack, Reinhardt and Lena often went out on patrol personally, Brigitte was left behind once more to keep the base safe, under very strict instructions from both Reinhardt and Jack. "Your mission is to stay on base and if no one else is here it mustn't be left unguarded unless you are told otherwise by myself or Morrison, understood?" She reluctantly agreed but felt it unfair. 

She hadn’t gotten another message since and her phone had been confiscated, examined thoroughly and returned, just in case. She understood, so didn’t complain too much, but wished she’d changed her ringtone first, it was embarrassing when she passed by Winston’s lab where he was checking it and he nearly had a heart attack when it rang, missing a call from her mother to the theme song to a kids show she’d liked for years. 

The days went by and Brigitte was getting very frustrated at not being able to do anything other than repair anything that came back damaged from missions. She felt like she’d been grounded for no reason. Hana seemed to be the most sympathetic and offered pleasant distractions in the form of games or offering to let Brigitte check out her Meka, (So long as nothing changed) and offered to help with repairs on other projects. Hana turned out to be pretty adept with building things and Brigitte was glad of the company but it felt like it wasn’t enough. 

By week’s end Brigitte was at the end of her rope and was testing out her armour and weapon in the gym, making sure everything worked and to let out some pent up frustrations. She didn’t notice a presence in the observation room above her tapping into the computer. 

After a minute Athena’s voice came over the gym’s loudspeaker. “Agent Brigitte and Dva report to Watchpoint warehouse N16. Possible infiltration, seek and capture.” The voice cut out. Brigitte hadn’t heard Athena give out missions before, usually it was Winston, but he was at the helipad at the moment, waiting for the team to return in an hour or so. 

Hana had run into the workshop and was in her meka just as Brigitte opened the doors for them to head out. “You heard that too then?” She asked, and Hana nodded, as her Meka lit up and began running. “Hold on!” 

Brigitte grabbed onto a metal loop at the back of the Meka and activated her own booster to keep up as it took off. 

The figure in the observation room chuckled and vanished from sight again, leaving the building and following the duo at a distance. 

_________________________________

They had gone a few miles and Hana had to drop the boost to preserve some fuel and just took to walking. Brigitte was almost out, she calculated she had maybe three or four short boosts left in the tank, which could be bad, but hopefully this would be over quickly if Athena just had the two of them dealing with the issue. 

She was trying to hide the fact she was excited for a mission, and focused. “Who do you think could’ve broken in?”

The Meka shrugged, which amused her. “Not sure. Could be an animal or rogue omnics, or just bandits. Could be anyone, best we expect the worst and hope for the best. I think the phrase goes.” She smiled over and Brigitte nodded, continuing to keep pace with the large meka. 

They could see the warehouse on the edge of a cliff, but from the looks of it it was outside the new fence perimeter. They shared a look and moved closer. There was no gate, but there was a massive hole in it leading out. Brigitte kneeled beside the chain link to inspect it, finding the edges had been melted. “This doesn’t feel right. They came from inside the base grounds?”

Hana was looking at something on her screen looking worried. “That doesn’t make sense, none of the scanners picked up anything, and we don’t know if we had any captives, you’d think we would have been told. Should we go back and make a report?”

Brigitte thought about it. “Well what if they get away in that time? We should at least take a look inside right?” 

Both made a grimace but Hana nodded. “Alright, take point, and I’ll watch your back.” 

Brigitte did as asked, and walked ahead, trying to detect any prints or something in the grass which got wilder and more overgrown the closer to the warehouse they got. She could see now the warehouse looked like it had seen better days, much better days. 

The walls were rusted and crumbling in places, the roof looked like it was sagging in the middle and the doors, she could now see were open with the handles busted and nowhere in sight. She could feel a cold tingle running up her spine and she swallowed hard, activating her shield. She pushed the door open a little. 

Already feeling on edge she let out a small yelp as a few birds rushed out of the building, having been disturbed. She heard Hana giggling at her and turned around with a small pout. “Not funny.”

Hana gave her a thumbs up and headed forward, turning on the Meka’s lights so they could see inside. They entered one after another, Brigitte still taking point. The inside looked a mess, but quite a treasure pile for Brigitte. Old busted up vehicles lay scattered, or what she thought was vehicles. Then she stepped on something and nearly screamed but she slammed her hand over her mouth. On the ground under her boot was an omnic hand. It didn’t move, and she looked around. These were omnic parts, not vehicles. She could see broken bodies everywhere now and was quite horrified by the sight. Hana looked uneasy and whimpered. “Brig..” The door slammed shut and both girls turned to face the now sealed exit. 

“What…”

A chuckle in the dark had them back to back looking everywhere, shield and defense matrix up. 

“Well well what do we have here. Two little overwatch agents, disturbing old corpses.” 

They turned, trying to catch a glimpse of who was speaking, from the reverb of it it sounded like an omnic though it was hard to tell. 

“Y-you’re trespassing on headqu-”  
“Silence. Overwatch was disbanded, what you are doing as far more illegal than my being here I assure you. “ He chuckled again. “Oh don’t worry, you won't live long enough to get in trouble for being here. Let’s see what my friends here think.”

 

They didn’t even have a second’s warning before the parts they figured inert blinked and began to move. Red eyes all looking towards the two. The omnic parts began to crawl over one another, some joining up to make bigger omnics, others were already pretty large and stood up, making other parts fall from them. The girl’s shields were blasted with a hurricane of bullets and energy. “Brig down!” Hana shouted and spun to return fire over Brigitte ass he ducked under the Meka’s arm. She lowered her shield arm and swung her flail out, catching the ankles of a few of the smaller omnics getting too close to them.

The voice cackled and they heard another door close on the other end of the warehouse.  
They were being slowly surrounded and Hana couldn’t hit them all. “Brigitte hold on!” 

Brigitte launched one omnic into another and reached behind her, finding the metal ring once again as they rocketed upwards aiming for the roof. She could see Hana firing at it to make an opening and covered her face. Something grabbed her leg and she yelled out as she was yanked down onto the ground, knocking the wind out of her. The omnic in front of her reminded her of the Orisa units, the deep purple looked almost black in the dim light, only able to see the red eyes. “BRIGITTE!” 

Hana was turning around to come back to help, and crashed into the omnic, Brigitte used one of her remaining boosts to rocket out of the way, bowling over several more omnics. 

Dust was kicked up into the air making it near impossible to see until red glowing eyes were right in their faces. Brigitte jumped to her feet and began swinging in panic, trying to go through her training, she got a few hits on something and hoped it wasn’t Dva. 

“Hana! HANA Where are you!”  
“Over here!”  
“Where?”

“HAMMER DOWN!”

The booming voice echoed through the warehouse and the dust was blown back from the force, Brigitte had to use her shield to stop it blinding her. She saw a boost of blue flames and something large rushed past her into the crowd of omnics, crushing a few into the opposite wall and scattering the rest. She backed up into something solid and saw Hana’s arm come around her. Firing into the scattered omnics but she could see the arm jam and stop. 

Reinhardt made swinging his hammer look effortless but it sent parts flying everywhere. A Zip of blue and Tracer appeared in front of the two of them. “Alright loves come with me now.” 

The three ran outside and turned as the warehouse started to shake and collapse. Brigitte held her breath and watched Reinhardt come walking out, dragging his hammer behind him and taking off his mask, and the look of relief on his face quickly turned to disappointment and anger. She felt herself flinch and look down. “Reinhardt I-”

“What. Did I tell you?” He snapped and she felt tears sting the corners of her eyes but she didn’t let them fall. She lowered her head and felt Hana shift behind her, and Lena was looking at them both sadly. 

“I’m sor-”  
“Back to base. Now.” He shouldered his hammer and walked past them, she watched for a moment, and noticed the dents in the armour, but no blood luckily. 

Lenna patted her shoulder and gave her a gentle nudge to follow. She did so, following the trail Reinhardt left in his wake. 

It took them quite a while to get back well within the base, and as the buildings came into view Rein stopped, raising his shoulders. “Lena, take Miss Song back to get her Meka repaired. Tell Torbjorn I’m having a word with my squire.” 

Lenna jumped after the silence was broken and gave a salute to Reinhardt then looked to Hana. “Come on luv.” Then looked at Brigitte and put a hand on her shoulder again, she looked like she wanted to say something and sighed, unable to bring herself to. She just patted her cheek and walked off with Hana in tow, who was giving Brigitte a sympathetic look.

She knew where this was going and felt her stomach drop.  
“Brigitte Lindholm.”  
Christ, he hadn’t used her full name in that tone in years. She flinched once more and slowly walked over to him, catching sight of the larger footprints he left next to her smaller ones.  
She stopped next to him but couldn’t look up to meet his gaze. 

He seemed to be thinking over something, last time he looked like this they had argued over if he should return to Overwatch or not. After pulling a hand over his face he turned to look at her and she finally looked up slightly.  
“Brigitte I..I thought I taught you better than this.”  
“I know I-”  
“You’re usually more careful, you acted without informing anyone where you were going. You could have been killed. Not to mention bringing Miss Song into this mess. What if we’d lost both of you?!” 

She shrunk back from his raised voice and he sighed, calming down some.  
“I was just trying to complete my first mission. What was I supposed to do?”  
He looked at her, brows furrowed. “Who gave you the mission?”  
“Athena. She came over the loudspeakers and told us there was an intruder and... I know you told me to take orders from only you and Jack but I thought maybe it was one of you who sent the message through Athena." 

“We..came as soon as we got back to base. Athena had been offline for a few minutes and can’t recall what happened, only that you two had gone, and in which direction”

“I’m sorry I didn’t think...I didn't think to call you or Jack to confirm or even find out who had sent the order I just..it sounded urgent and needed action.”

“No..you didn’t.” He sounded a little calmer but still stern, Brigitte was starting to remind him of himself in his youth, even if she had up till now been the more sensible of the two out on their own. Brigitte felt his hand clap down over her shoulders and she looked up at him, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. 

“But. We all make mistakes. But we should learn from zem. Think. In future, if you get a mission, clarify it with Winston or someone else, do not try to take down threats on your own. You need your team and we need you.”

“But. The others go on solo missions all the time.”  
“No, zey do not. We might leave base alone but I assure you we either have someone watching us or we have people we can rely on at our destination. No one works alone Brigitte. Even ME. Though, I do make it look good ya?” 

She smiled then yelped when he shoved her over and laughed hard. She got up and tried to tackle him back, he let out a deep “oof!” As he ‘fell’ back and laughed harder. She giggled and sat up, resting her back against his leg as he did the same.  
They could see stars beginning to appear in the sky as it turned from dusk to dark.  
“I still have stuff to learn then?” She asked, quietly, and felt Reinhardt shift and put an arm around her. 

“Ya. Believe me I was every bit as hot headed as you in my youth, more so I’d say. It can lead to trouble, as you know. You called me out many times, so I suppose I owe you the same.” He chuckled again and put his helmet on her head, making it impossible for her to see. She giggled back and tried to shove him over again, blocked by his arm holding her away from him. 

She pulled the helmet up enough to smile up at her godfather who smiled back. “Are we...ok?” She asked tentatively. 

He nodded. “Of course. I cannot stay mad at you, you know I’ll not let harm come to you if I can help it. But, I think we need to put a few more lessons into the thick head of yours.” He poked her forehead, making her lean back then swat his hand away. 

“You’re right. I owe Hana an apology too.” She felt her heart clench. What if Hana had gotten hurt, it would’ve been her fault. Reinhardt helped her up and in turn she pulled him up with her. Together they made their way back to the base to explain what happened to the rest of the team.


	4. Talons are bared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short chapter

Meanwhile in a submarine just off the Gibraltar coast. 

“What happened?! I had those two running in blind and you still couldn’t get rid of them? You had to gloat first?”

“You also said no one else was at the base, we were rushed by sir Lance-a-loud-and-obnoxious and the time lord reject.”

A voice cut over the arguing pair, a tall lanky woman stood in the doorway, glaring at the two. “You are both quite incompetent, I was promised you would suffice for this mission. So would one of you please. Explain.”

Sombra huffed and gestured mockingly to the omnic to step up. He did so, giving Sombra quite the rude gesture behind his back. “Well, once the girls showed up I had my omnic puppets attack like we planned, and the two were about to bite it when, as I said. The big guy showed up and thrashed the place. What was I supposed to do? Kill him to. Hardly possib-”

“Exactly.”

Sombra and the omnic looked at each other confused. 

Moira strode past them and tapped a few things into the computer, bringing up a screen with several profiles on display. “While he is not the only threat to our plan, he will be a problem if he continues to teach the brat. However. I know he is close to a lot of the overwatch idiots, getting him out of the way will break them irreparably. If we get rid of the newcomers, that’s even fewer to deal with and getting in will be much easier. You Brax will be our inside man...Omnic. Once I finish my other little project.”

Sombra looked skeptical. “You’re going to have to explain, you keep mentioning this project but never tell us what it is exactly.”

The look Moira gave Sombra would have cowed most other people, but Sombra just rolled her eyes.  
“Patience girl. Things will fall into place when they need to but for now. I have an idea in mind, and I need you both to work together for this. We’re going to need a lot of those spare omnic parts to begin with. We may have to play some cards early, and wait. It wouldn’t do to act hastily after this fuckup now would it?” She turned over her shoulder and gave a sinister smirk, showing just a little flash of teeth.  
“Prepare to move out. Brax, come with me, I have a little test to run.”

Brax looked at Sombra with allt he smugness the omnic could muster only to glare when a manicured lilan nail tapped him on the face plate. "Boop" She waved before vanishing from his sight. He glared and followed the doctor out of the room, not looking forward to being her guinea pig.


	5. Consequences

For a whole month, Brigitte had to clean and fix everything in the base that people could come up with. Hana to some extent too, but only for a few days, as she had to return to Korea for a few weeks, but was due back any day now. She was exhausted, and had worked and trained from dawn till dusk helping get the base fully functional and ‘up to code’ as Angela put it. She knew the team was upset with her still but were all offering varying pieces of advice, sympathy or understanding when they passed her by while she was busy. 

She was starting to feel like a kid again, but figured this was just the team’s way of dealing with new recruits. Just last week some new guy joined, coming along with Fareeha, Ana and McCree. She’d greeted them all happily, glad to see them again, or meeting them for the first time. 

The new guy seemed to be a little cold towards her, and she couldn’t help but feel he disliked her. So she kept her distance where possible. He ended up on cleaning duty too on occasion for minor hiccups, though never more than a day. She didn’t know how he got in or where he’d come from. Winston couldn’t find much out other than he got the recall message in place of a relative of a past agent and volunteered to fill in as the agent had passed on. Only thing she learned was his call name, Brax. Sounded odd to her but she let it be. 

The base got a little busier as more people took over the spaces, either in the gym, the workshop or helping out with communications and transport, bringing in salvage or items from other bases and it began feeling like a real headquarters. 

When Hana returned from her home mission Brigitte was the first to greet her off the helicopter while the Meka was taken to the workshop. She hugged her friend tightly but then jumped hearing someone nearby clear his throat. She hadn’t expected Brax of all people to follow her. “I hate to bother you two lovebirds but I come bearing a message, or would you like me to give you a moment?” 

Brigitte blushed so hard she thought she was going to get a nosebleed, and Hana jumped away, and glared back at him, hating the smug grin on his face. 

“What is it Brax?”

He just continued leering at them and folded his arms. “Ask nicely now.”

She glared and sighed. “Please give us the message Brax.” She folded her arms too, which were quite a bit bigger than his, but he didn’t seem to care. 

“Was that so hard? The message was, don’t get Miss Song into any more trouble while she’s here.” His smirk turned dark and Brigitte paled slightly. Unsure as to how he found out what happened. Who told him? At this point anyone really she sighed. “That’s all. Oh and you’re no longer on probation. Congratulations, have fun you two, do give me an invite if you two get hitched yeah?” He turned and walked away as the pair spluttered indignantly and took a step away from each other. Not sure what to make of the comment.

“You! Mind your business!” Brigitte called after him, and calmed down once he rounded the corner. She looked at Hana who looked back and both looked away at the same time. Things felt a little awkward then Brigitte turned back. “So uh, shall we get some lunch?” She asked and Hana nodded. 

“Yeah please. The ride over made me tired.” She followed Brigitte a little ways, trying to hide a yawn. Brigitte noticed and slowed her pace. Only Hana had jumped onto her back instead and she had to reach behind to grab her legs to keep her from sliding off her back. "Geese Hana you could’ve said something I would’ve brought a bike or car out for you.” She smiled over her shoulder, seeing Hana already asleep with her head on her shoulder. She felt her cheeks heat up again and looked ahead, hoping no one was watching as she carried Hana back to base and to Hana’s room. She let her sleep for a bit and ran out to grab some sandwiches and a note on the bedside for her, along with a bottle of soda she’d convinced Lenna to bring back a few days ago on her shopping trip. 

The note was a sincere apology for getting them into trouble last time Hana was here, and a promise she’d make it up to her. 

_______________________________________________________

Things seemed to have been brighter since Hana returned, at least for Brigitte. She had enjoyed introducing Hana to the newcomers, but stayed away from Brax, still weary of him, he seemed to know where she was going to be at any given time and enjoyed making her uncomfortable. She wasn’t quite sure what that was about but he’d been catching up with her more and more. 

During training she ended up paired with him for sparring and he was giving her a good challenge. While they fought and dodged and moved around the room he managed to get her away from the group and began to talk. “Listen, I wanted to apologies.” He ducked a punch and Brigitte looked at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“What for?”

He smiled and moved to tackle but she slipped out of the way and tripped him only to catch his arm and lift him back up so they could keep fighting.  
“Well for making you feel awkward. Honestly I think you’re a good asset for Overwatch.” 

She blinked, not sure what to say and got a punch to the shoulder for not paying attention.  
“I mean still have a bit to learn but you have promise. I shouldn’t have been as hostile as I was. Think I could make it up to you?”

She raised a brow again and caught the next punch. “How? What do you have in mind?”

He just smirked, “Well, I have my first mission coming up and I get to pick a partner. I know you’ve been wanting to get out to do something and I think I can pull some strings.”

She thought about it for a moment and took a kick to her side which floored her, it was much more powerful than she was expecting and held her side. “Tempted to say no after that. Cheater.”

He shrugged and helped her stand up. He felt way too strong for a scrawny guy, then again. Her eyes wandered over to Hana who was fighting with Pharah who was holding her back with ease. She looked back at Brax who had a knowing smirk. “As I was saying before your mind wandered. Feel like joining me on a mission?”

She blushed but it went quickly. “I’d love to. Just a partner or do you think Hana could come along too?” 

Something twitched in his expression but she couldn’t quite say what. 

“No unfortunately, It’s only a patrol mission we’d be too conspicuous, besides, I think Hana will have her own mission soon, couldn’t help overhearing a few things.” 

Brigitte felt her heart sink but the prospect of a mission was hard to pass up. “I’ll do it. Where’s it going to be?”

He just smiled again. “Won't know just yet, but be ready tomorrow, we’re gonna be heading out early.” 

 

__________________________________

Early was an understatement. Brigitte woke around three in the morning at someone knocking on her door. She got up and hurriedly dressed, pulling the door open. “Brax? We’re going now?”

He was dressed in all black and nodded. “Get ready we don’t have much time,”

She blinked sleep from her eyes and grabbed her armour, pulling it on as quickly as she could and then her flail and shield. She followed Brax out of the base and scrawled a note while he walked ahead. She left it on Winston’s desk and caught up with him. 

Brax gestured to a small hover bike and Brigitte got on the back while he took the handlebars. When they left the base she grew more and more curious about where they were going. They passed the ruins of the warehouse but turned towards a more hilly area. “So where exactly are we going?”

“Trust me, not too far, there’s an old bridge that might be a cause for concern we just gotta keep an eye on it. We call back if anything happens and deal with whoever’s been trying to get into the base.”

“Right…” 

It seemed like something they ought to do so she didn’t question any further. 

The sun was just rising when they stopped at a ridge overlooking the next one where Brigitte could see the bridge but a cloud of black smoke just billowed out from the engine. “Dammit. Brigitte, do you mind taking a look at this? It’s our ride back too.”

“Uh sure I can fix it up.” She got off and moved around to check where the smoke was coming from, being careful not to cause more damage. 

“Right, I’ll take a look around I’ll call you if I need help alright? Just stay here so I can find you. Try not to make too much noise hm?” 

He grinned and began walking away she frowned but got to work on fixing the engine.  
It felt like hours passed and she finally got the engine in working order, or so she thought. It had been a while since she’d worked on a bike, she had her and Reinhardt’s van but the engines were quite different. 

She stood up, pleased with herself but as she turned the key the exhaust backfired and it sounded like a loud gunshot. She froze, feeling sweat pour from her and she turned as she felt the ground tremble. A hoard of omnics were starting to come out of seemingly nowhere and were swarming up towards her. She had no option but to turn and run for the bridge. 

_______________________

“Reinhardt!” The large knight stopped after almost knocking on Brigitte’s door to wake her up for training. “It’s Brigitte! She’s at the bridge! Omnics...everywhere.” Brax panted hard and bent over holding his legs. 

Reinhardt paled and he burst open the door and looked inside, seeing the room empty. “No..” He turned and charged down the hallway, right passed Tracer.  
“I just heard, I’m gonna go get Jack and Angela they can AH!” Something struck her before she could move and was deposited over a pile of chairs and tables Reinhardt had charged through in order to get out quickly. Brax smirked at his handy work and followed Reinhardt as quickly as he could. 

The crusader had charged almost all the way there and Brax could see his power was getting low from over using it, good. He’d grabbed on so he could watch this happen and then let the old man go as they reached the bike, now absent of one Brigitte. “Brigitte! Where are you?! wh-HOLD ON!” He yelled into his comms and then charged again for the bridge, watching one side snap he used his shield to send omnics flying and his heart raced seeing Brigitte barely hanging on.


	6. Overwhelmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry

Brigitte sprinted along the dirt path higher up the hillside, she drew closer to a rickety old bridge spanning the gap between the hill and the opposite cliff. It didn’t look too steady and she wasn’t sure it would take the weight of her armour. 

Gunshots pinged off the back of her armour and she spun around, shield out and looked on as several dozen omnics were coming out of the surrounding shrubs and rocks advancing on her and cutting her off from the road home. She backed up onto the bridge and a bullet cut passed her cheek, causing her to yelp and turn again, using her arm to keep from getting shot in the head. 

Her heart was hammering so hard she could barely hear the noise around her. The bridge gave a worrying creak as the omnics began marching onto the bridge. She had to adjust her stance to keep from falling over. The omnics were getting closer, still firing into her shield which was moments away from shattering, she couldn’t hold it. 

Snap! The blood drained from her face and it felt like her stomach plummeted right down the canyon, but as her shield broke she reached out, only just holding on to the frayed rope. She let out a scream as she dropped several feet only to bounce up violently, swinging above the almost half mile drop below. The omnics on the bridge had already fallen and the rest were piled up where the ends were, some contemplating cutting the rest of the rope. Eyes wide she screamed at them. “No please!” 

Her comms device buzzed and a voice cut through the noise and even through the blood pounding in her ears. “Brigitte! Where are you?! wh-HOLD ON!”

“Reinhardt!” She yelled back but could already hear his thrusters in the distance. She turned to the road she’d come from and Omnics flew past her into the canyon and she could see the old crusader standing there watching her. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks and tried to reach up with her other hand, letting her flail fall so she could climb towards him but a sudden drop made her look to the other side. No, please no! The omnics were firing at the last rope of the bridge, taunting her and she could see the snap before it happened. 

“HA!” The rope broke and she could feel herself going into free fall and couldn’t react when she saw Reinhardt activate his thrusters again coming right towards her. She tried to yell for him to stop but he collided with her, knocking the wind out of her lungs as they rocketed towards the opposite cliff. She felt her armour take the brunt of the collision into the cliff and he slammed his hammer in hilt first , holding onto it like a climbing pick. She held onto the rocks and looked at him, so relieved and reached to help pull him up. 

His helmet had been dislodged at some point and he smiled reassuringly as he reached for her arm but a shadow came over them and he looked up and shoved Brigitte back into the wall further and she watched as an omnic had dived down the cliff and struck Reinhardt and they both tumbled down. She grabbed a hold of the hammer and the world slowed way down. She leaned out as far as she dared, reaching for him, unaware of the throat tearing scream she was letting out, hoping he could reach her hand. His gauntlet just slipped from the tips of her fingers and his grimace of pain became that ever warm and reassuring smile as he fell beyond her sight below. Her world lay shattered. 

_____________________________________________

 

The omnics gave up eventually, moving on, and it took almost an hour before Brigitte began a very shaky climb down the cliff side, almost losing her footing on occasion but she managed to make it to the bottom as the sun began to set. She pulled up her comms and tried to contact the base. “Help! Anybody? Come in! Reinhardt’s...down..” She dropped the broken device and stumbled forward onto her knees before a large form on the ground, embedded a good several inches into the dust. She put her hand on the armour, it felt cold, the power core no longer running. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks and she let out a small sob. Leaning against her mentor’s chest. “Reinhardt please..please wake up… you can’t be gone. Please.” 

The armour didn’t move, he looked almost asleep, head turned to the side. Brigitte, still in denial reached for his face, removing her gauntlets and with shaking fingers tried to lift his head. He felt cold and a new wave of sorrow crashed into her like a punch to the gut. 

She didn’t know how long she was there, laying on her side and holding her mentor’s face and sobbing, sniffling but it was dark when she looked up once again. A voice from the dark spoke softly, almost sympathetic but it felt eerie. “Brigitte. What did you do?” 

Brigitte didn’t have the energy to question the voice and looked down at Reinhardt again, tears still rolling down her cheeks, she wiped them away and stood on shaky legs. “I..I was just trying to help..there was..I…”

“Of course you were.” The voice gave that sickly, sweetly, sympathetic tone again. “But Dear Reinhardt is now dead.” A hand was placed on her shoulder, pulling her away slightly. She looked up at Brax and frowned. “What will the others think hmm?.”

Brax asked but Brigitte couldn’t answer him as thoughts of the other members of overwatch flashed through her mind. All glaring angrily, disappointed or worse outright vile towards her. Her father..this was his best friend, would he forgive her? She wouldn’t in his position. Hana…

“I...I can’t...what should I do” She asked through a half sob. 

“Better run Brigitte, I think I hear them coming. I may be able to slow them down.” he hid his grin as he turned around and backed away, she lost sight of him in the dark and she could hear the omnics start to move again. 

She ran, she ran and ran, till she was sprinting, and in her full plate no less, was getting exhausted but the pain in her lungs was nothing, her legs were not as heavy at her heart right now. She could smell the salty breeze and looked around, she’d made it to the civilian docks, some ways away from the base. A loud sound forced her to turn around and she could see men in black masks riding hoverbikes towards her and she ran harder, pushing off her shoulder guards and pulling her arm guards away to lighten the load. They rode right past and something cracked across the back of her head and she saw nothing, felt nothing as her form tumbled from the pier into the water. A woman in purple stood on the edge and smirked. 

“So long child. You will be missed.” She chuckled and headed over to where the armour had been dropped, shoving it into one of the masked men’s arms. “Make sure they find these with the old man.” 

Brigitte’s body was luckily snagged on the anchor of a ship that was just departing the docks, the crew pulled her on board, but couldn’t get her to wake up so kept her in the sick bay to recover as their voyage went underway. 

 

________________________________

DVa landed outside the entrance to the base and ejected, running inside quickly, having got a call from Winston to return immediately. She wasn’t sure what to expect, it sounded worrying but he wouldn’t tell her over the comms. She got to the main hall and skidded to a halt in the doorway and both hands covered her mouth with a gasp. 

A large suit of armour lay on a small carrier along with pieces of broken armour in orange and white. She held onto the door frame and took in the faces of the people around it with their heads lowered. Jack had a hand over his face, Angela had hers over her mouth, not hiding the tears streaming down her face. Winston had removed his glasses and was sat behind them looking straight down at the helmet in his hands. Torbjorn was openly sobbing on his knees, with his arms on the carrier and his head in them. His large claw striking the metal in anguish. Lena looked over at her with a stricken look and Hana ran over to her, caught in a tight hug as they grieved with the rest. She didn’t need to hear it or ask, she knew what this meant, and it broke her heart. 

The next morning Brax was called to a meeting with everyone to report what exactly happened.  
“I was called out to investigate the area around the old bridge, but my partner was not available and Brigitte offered to come along. Would not leave me alone until I agreed.” He had his head bowed and his arms folded over his lap, the image of pained by loss.  
“I got Reinhardt to come help when the omnics began attacking after the bike Brigitte was fixing exploded. He rushed to save her but the omnics collapsed the bridge. They both fell and..I am sorry I..I couldn’t find enough of her. Ashes...so much..” He forced a small sob and stepped down. 

The following days were a blur of black and grey. The armour and Reinhardt’s body was flown home, followed by his funeral, and Brigitte’s. It was kept utterly quiet for as long as possible but the news managed to get a hold of it somehow, and the group had to disperse once again, going into hiding so their activities couldn’t be monitored, though they stayed in touch. DVa returned to Korea to protect her home, though not before scouring every inch of the canyon, holding out hope that maybe Brigitte was still alive. After a few days that last piece of hope vanished. She found the broken shield and flail. She returned the flail to Torbjorn who, wasn’t sure how to react and quickly left with it, still devastated. She kept the broken shield, and gave it a place inside her Meka, as a small reminder of the friend she’d loved and lost too soon.


	7. Recovery

“I’m telling you Roadie, My next plan is genius! We just need some..some...hey!” Junkrat grabbed his large companion’s shoulder and climbed up to pull his mask towards the beach. “I spy with my bloodshot eyes, some scavers muscling in on some prime scrap!” 

“Hrmph.” 

The slightly singed man put a hand above his eyes and narrowed them, leaning over his friend to get a better view. “Hey Roadie..the scrap’s...moving? Should we do something?”

The two looked at each other for a few moments, Roadhog gave the briefest of nods and Junkrat got excited and reached for a tyre only to have his hand slapped away. “The non boom one?” He whimpered. Another nod and he grumbled, reaching for the non explosive tyre out of the sidecar of their bike, parked beside them and lets the engine run before kicking it down the hill onto the beach and yelling at the top of his voice. “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

The scavengers all looked behind them and started frantically tripping over each other to get out of the way, some diving into the irradiated waves, others running uphill away from the tyre making very concerned noises. 

Junkrat was so busy cackling he fell off the wall he’d been sitting on, still laughing maniacally as Roadhog ambled down onto the sand towards the scrap heap. He stared down, his expression unseen behind the mask but he did tilt his head as though considering what to do. He dislodged a large piece of twisted metal panel and tossed it of of the rest, and froze. 

After a few minutes Junkrat stumbled over. 

“I think she’s alive.” Came a rumble from the inside of the mask. 

“She?” Junkrat looked down and jumped, seeing the girl’s face turned to the side, splayed out on her back covered in quite badly dented armour, or half covered in armour, the breastplate was nowhere in sight and the grieves were missing. He leaned down and poked her cheek, making her flinch slightly but barely moved other than that. “What should we do wiv her? “

Roadhog was silent and looked at the sea for a moment then shook his head. 

“I didn’t mean dispose of her, we’re not barbarians.” Junkrat put his hand on his chest which he puffed out trying to look gentlemanly. Roadhog just sighed. “Ok so maybe we are, but not today!” He grinned. “Sides it’d be bad manners.”

“Since when did you care about manne-”  
“When there's ladies present! Damn roadie have you no heart?”

Silence.

“We’re keeping her. Never know, might come in handy.”

A heavy sigh came from Roadhog’s mask and he bent down and lifted Brigitte easily, even though she was heavier than he expected, with the armour and muscle. He considered tossing her over his shoulder but looking down at her now slightly sunburned face he thought better and held her with one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders and began to follow Junkrat back to their bike. 

____________________________________

It had been over two days, between the two of them they’d removed the armour and put it neatly (ish) on one of their makeshift shelves in the workshop, made up a bed made of tyres, old sacks and duvets, letting Brigitte sleep, while occasionally making sure she had water. 

She finally began to stir on the second evening and sat up, holding her head in her hands.   
“Oi Look who’s up!! Rise n Shine!” She looked as a very bedraggled looking man who just jumped onto the end of her bed and she let out a very cracked and dry scream, ending in a coughing fit and a long list of Swedish curse words. 

Junkrat yelped and fell backwards, not having expected that reaction and poked his head up from the end of the bed to check she wasn’t going to lash out. 

Roadhog came to the rescue and put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up and her eyes went wide! It looked like she was about to scream again but he presented a small pink floral teacup filled with steaming hot black tea. “Sugar?”

There was an awkward quiet for at least a minute but Roadhog kept still and waited, Junkrat was looking between the two frantically waiting to see what would happen, half wanting to see that awful gaudy cup get smashed. No such luck. 

“Ah n-no thank you. Uhm..” She took the cup and he let go of her, moving away and dragging a busted up sofa a little closer and sitting upon it with a heavy thud, bringing his own little teacup with him. Having to lift up the mask briefly to sip. 

This was so surreal, Brigitte looked between the two as Junkrat joined Roadhog on the sofa, arms crossed. She took a sip of the tea, then another, and found it wasn’t too bad. 

“Where..am I exactly?” She asked after a few minutes, and Junkrat piped up before Roadhog could.  
“You’reeeeeee in Junkertown!” Roadhog nudged him with his elbow, making him nearly fall off the sofa. “I mean just outside Junkertown, on good ol Oz!”

“So is there a wizard or?” She asked with a small grin. Junkrat looked confused but Roadhog started laughing, making Junkrat stare at him. 

“Wasso funny?!”  
“Read a book Jamison.” Came the garbled rumble from the gas mask. 

“I must’ve been out for a while…” Brigitte looked into the half full teacup at her reflection, spotting the sunburn and wincing slightly. She finished her cup and put it to one side and looking at the two expectantly. 

“Hmm.” Came Roadhog’s reply. 

“Saw you on the beach, and Roadie here wanted to throw you back like an old fish but I was having none of it. So we brought you here and…” He paused and gave her a look, narrowing his eyes. “What are you doing way out here anyway? Not many outsiders make it down this far.”

 

Brigitte flinched for a moment, remembering what happened in flashes and pieces. “Doesn’t matter. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

The two men looked at one another, Junkrat shrugged not knowing what to say and Roadhog scratched at his head for a moment, leaving the decision to Junkrat.

“Wellllllllll, we got the room so you can crash with us. So what do you do lady?”

“Brigitte.”

“Gesundheit” 

She smiled a little. “No no my name, is Brigitte. I’m a...an engineer, and medic.” 

Junkrat’s eyes lit up. “Really?! Oh you’re gonna fit in alright!”

She couldn’t help but smile a little at that, looking between her rescuers.   
“I want to repay you for helping me out, so if you have anything that needs fixing I’m sure I can get it up and running in no time. So, since you asked me, what do you guys do?”

The shared a look, both thinking the same thing ‘how much do we tell her?’

Junkrat answered again. “Well roadie here is a freedom fighter, I help, sort of. Liberating things for those in need. And he keeps me safe, mostly.” He clasped his hands and blinked a few times. She didn’t quite believe him but couldn’t help giggling at the animated twig of a man. 

“So..” She points at Junkrat. “Robin hood and..” She points at Roadhog. “Little john?”  
They all had a laugh at that, and Roadhog poured out more tea, though Junkrat made a face at his cup but drank anyway to make Roadie happy. 

“Well, thank you for helping me out. I’m not sure what would’ve happened if you guys hadn’t found me.”

“You’d be sold for scrap pa- Ow!” Junkrat rubbed his shoulder where he just got punched. “Glad we could help Brigi..Bri..Brig.” She smiled at the nickname.

Another nudge from Roadhog and he glared up at the hog before realizing what he wanted. “Oh Right right. My name’s Jamison Fawkes, but everyone calls me Junkrat. This here’s Mako, but we call him Roadhog, or Roadie for short.” 

Brigitte nodded to each of them with a small “pleased to meet you.”

_________________________________________________

After another day or so recovering Brigitte got to familiarize herself with her new surroundings, not daring to venture out very far, and working on the bike they’d shown her. With the parts they brought in almost daily she’d patched it and rebuilt parts, even building her own forge and workstation. The two were all too happy to watch or help her work. 

Soon a routine was built with the three, They brought scrap and built things together, some stuff sold for a pretty penny, meaning they could get a hold of better scrap. Word got around and others came by for repairs or patching up when they lost digits or limbs. She had started to cover her Ironclad tattoo, after a few too many people asked about it and she couldn’t face telling them what it meant anymore. 

They took trips into the city on occasion, with Junkrat’s ban lifted since he was behaving somewhat around their new housemate. As her reputation around Junkertown grew, the more people requested she take a look at their scrap bots and mechs, hoping it’d give them the edge in the ring. Brigitte obliged, Though she found the sport exciting it didn’t quite feel right. 

After a year and a half, the group decided it might be a good idea to sign her up for the battles as well, and although it took some convincing she caved and built a scrap mech that, at first reminded her too much of Reinhardt but she didn’t have the heart to scrap it. So she modified it to fit the town and made it look spiky and very much not crusader armour, then slimmed it down so she could move a bit faster inside it. 

Her career started off a little rough, as she got used to the rules and learned the sort of techniques the junkers employed. That is cheap and dirty. She got better and soon became mostly undefeated over the next couple of years, in the singles matches anyway. Spending any time not battling in building training and being a sort of go to mechanic or medic for the population of Junkertown. More often than not though there were days or even weeks where things were much more relaxed and the gang just went for drives or walks, and getting into a little trouble here and there, though Brigitte wouldn’t let them do anything too crazy. 

 

________________________________________

 

After a particularly busy day, Junkrat and Roadhog noticed Brigitte was not her usual self and was overworking herself. This happened a few times during her stay, enough for them to know they needed to distract her or risk an overtired and grumpy Brigitte. So they shut down the forge and pulled her with them into town for a treat of take out, and drinks. She’d gotten used to the lifestyle, even if she didn’t enjoy the alcohol all that much it took the edge off when she had bad days, though only if she had their company. 

“So Brig.” Junkrat asked through mouth fulls of noodles. “What’s got ya down? Do we have to go kneecap an asshole for ya?” 

She smiled but it faded quickly. “No nothing like that. Just, thinking that’s all. Bout home.”

Junkrat and Roadhog looked at each other once again and got another round of drinks. “Bout the thing we’re not supposed to talk about?” Junkrat ventured hesitantly. 

“Yeah.”

Roadhog patted her shoulder in his own silent way of offering comfort. She appreciated it and patted his arm in return. “Hey I got an idea.” Junkrat piped up, spilling his lunch onto the bar, which got him a glare from the barman.   
“Why don’t we go get you..some new ink?! So you match me and Roadie?! You been wiv us so long I shoulda brought it up sooner. What do you think?”

She thought about it, and honestly it would keep her mind occupied for a time, and it honestly felt nice to be part of a family, as strange and sudden as it was. She felt like these two were rather doting brothers. “Sure why not. Do I get a nickname to go with it?” She’d meant it as a joke but the look on Junkrat’s face seemed to take it as a real question.

He beamed and looked at Roadhog who nodded. “Welllll We’ve been thinking it over, and we’ve come up with a good name.” He cleared his throat and then proudly announced to the bar. “Ladies and Gentlemen! May I present! LIONFORGE!” A few people cheered but most of the bar were too into their drinks to respond, but Brigitte felt moved by the pride in the nickname. 

So the morning after, and some heavy duty coffee, the three went back into town to the tattoo parlor that Junkrat and Roadhog got theirs done and helped Brigitte select the design she wanted. She sketched out a rough idea, or two and the burly looking tattoo artist nodded along and refined them a little. Most of the day was spent there, talking idly about goings on while Brigitte got her ink. The design was settled on an open roaring lion’s head with an old fashioned forge grate behind it’s teeth with flames becoming it’s mane surrounded it in a similar style to how she wore her hair. Once it was finished, cleaned and wrapped she loved it and thanked both Junkrat and Roadhog for taking the time to cheer her up and asked if they’d want to watch a scrap fight, on her. Of course they did. 

The arena was packed, and while Brigitte took care not to bump her shoulder into anyone it slowed them down but they found some empty seats while Roadhog arrived a few minutes later with armfuls of popcorn and drinks for them all. Junkrat held the large barrel of popcorn on his lap so they could all reach and Roadhog handed Brigitte her drink and held onto his and Junkrat’s. 

The first few rounds were for newbies and were over fairly quickly. Then the champions brought out their A game and the crowd was going nuts over it. People either ducked or held up buckets to catch flying scrap metal coming into the crowds from the fighting mechs below. 

The queen herself was announcing and cheering on the competitors with more enthusiasm than normal, and leading the crowds in cheers and boos.


	8. Old faces

Several matches in and halfway through their popcorn barrel, Brigitte was listening intently as the Junker Queen made an announcement for the next match. She’d missed coming for the last few weeks, having been busy repairing her own junk mech. 

“And now ladies and gentlemen, our newest challenger, undefeated in her last few matches. Allow me to introduce Scrap Singer!” The crowd went berserk, Brigitte looked around confused, mouth still ful she swallowed hard and leaned into Junkrat. 

“Who the hell is Scrap singer?” 

He stopped booing and jeering to lean back and answer. “No bloody clue. Showed up a few weeks back and wiped the floor with everyone here. I think she brought in some outside tech but can’t prove anything, Queenie likes her though, which really gets up my-”

“Whoa!” Brigitte jumped when a bipedal mech dropped from the ceiling and caused the arena to shake a bit. It looked kind of like a truck cab suspended on two legs with very odd but familiar looking arms with multiple gun barrels. She looked very confused, trying to think where she’d seen something like that before, but could barely make out any shapes through the rusty looking metal. 

A few matches went on and Brigitte was watching this newcomer with interest, watching their technique. They took down all challengers with ease.

“Does anyone here have the nerve to challenge Scrap singer?! No one?”

Junkrat jumped out of his seat. “LIONFORGE WILL! BRING IT ON YA OVERGROWN PIECE OF-” Brigitte pulled him back into his seat. 

“What are you doing?”

He just grinned and gave Brigitte a nudge. “You got this, you haven’t been in a match in ages, go kick her ass. Look at how much is being dished out for a win!” He pointed up to the scoreboard and the prize money displayed next to Scrap singer’s name. 

Brigitte sighed and gave him a withering look but got up and headed down to the arena workshop to find her own suit. 

“Well well Now we have a show. Our previous champion against our newcomer, get your buckets and bets ready this is going to be spectacular!” 

______________

Once in her suit Brigitte could hear the crowds outside chanting both names. She wondered if Roadhog and Junkrat had been using the nickname since before they told her about it. Usually the crowd already knew her as Brig, at least. 

The gates rattled open and she boosted into the arena, circling around Scrap singer and coming to a stop and slammed her new flail into the ground sending up dust as an intimidation display. The crowd ate it up and cheered louder. 

“Alright ladies, 3...2...1...FIGHT!” 

The two collided almost immediately, both had boosted right into each other and unfortunately, Brigitte’s boosters only carried their own weight, this newbie slammed into her and crushed her against the wall before scraping around the ring. 

Her ears were ringing with the sound and she just about managed to land on her feet when her opponent stopped and jumped back. Brigitte could see a pair of gloves in the window of the machine holding what looked like joysticks. She tilted her head, confused when a left hook came right at her face, ringing her helmet quite badly. She activated her shield and did a short boost and knocked the cab of the opposing Mech upwards, following up with an upwards swing of her flail. 

Parts were getting dislodged and the two were hammering at one another for what felt like hours. Brigitte could feel blood running down the side of her face and was having trouble seeing clearly. She charged one more time right into the cab, breaking the glass but the mech kicked upwards and locked it’s arms around her in a flip and landed on top of brigitte. She felt the wind leave her lungs and her helmet flew off on impact. She forced her eyes open and looked up into the mech’s window and froze, eyes now wide as they could go. Staring down at her with the same look of shock was “Hana?!” 

The Mech got off of her and backed up several feet. The crowd was quiet looking confused. Brigitte got up, exhausted but so happy to see her friend. “Hana is that..is that really you?” 

The crowd was starting to boo and hiss at them for pausing the match. Brigitte looked down at her flail and threw it aside, throwing the match. Things were being thrown into the ring and something hit her back, she felt the clang and was yanked backwards into the workshop by Roadhog’s hook just as someone threw in a whole bucket of scrap that would have hit her. She could see Hana’s mech retreating to the opposing workshop and out of sight. 

“What the bloody hell was that? You had her, one more hit it would’ve been over. Why’d you do that Brig? C’mon!!!” She flinched seeing Junkrat upset and ranting, stomping about the workshop and she looked away. 

Roadhog was silent as usual but didn’t seem all that upset. He helped her out of her suit and checked her over, and patching up the wound on her temple. 

“And another thing you! you..YOU! Why are you here?!” 

Brigitte looked up and saw Hana, outside of her mech just walk into the room looking horrified then ran at Brigitte. Junkrat got in the way cutting her off and Roadhog stood behind him. 

“Listen here y’aint supposed to be on this side of oof!” He got bowled over as Brigitte charged past him and Roadie to tackle her friend in the tightest hug, spinning her around and laughing hard. 

“Oh my god it is you! Hana I’ve missed you so much. How did. When did? Why??” She tried to get every question out at once and Hana, although she was hugging back like her life depended on it was patting her arm trying to signal she couldn’t breathe. 

“Oh sorry.” She put Hana down and looked over seeing Junkrat’s jaw fall open in such shock she couldn’t help but giggle. 

Hana grabbed Brigitte by the face to force her to look her in the eyes, almost in disbelief and making sure she was really there. “How are you still alive? We all thought…” She paused, biting on her lower lip, clearly keeping herself from crying. “When we found him and you were nowhere to be seen. We..We looked for you, I looked for you. Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come back?” 

Brigitte felt her heart break and she looked down, unable to answer. “I..” She looked over at Junkrat and Roadhog again, Junkrat puffed out his chest and marched over, putting himself between her and Hana. 

“So lemme get this straight you know our Brig, an’ she knows you and you thought she was dead? Then you come smashing into our arena and you two are just ok? What’s going on exactly? Brig who is this?”

She blushed a little and looked between the three of them. “This..is going to be a long story, maybe we should go home to talk?” She looked over at Roadhog who nodded to her and he picked up Junkrat who was glaring at Hana suspiciously, and Hana was just glaring right back. 

On the walk home, Brigitte couldn’t think of anything to say and kept catching Hana staring at her like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She wanted to tell her everything right there and then, and hold her and… She walked into the post holding up the roof over their porch, and winced, holding her nose. After a moment cursing and seeing Hana giggle at her she relaxed a bit and followed the boys inside. 

Once everyone was seated and had tea in hand, Brigitte was trying to figure out where to start, but Junkrat spoke up first. “So. Who are you? how you know Brig? and why are you way out here?!” 

“Jameson!” She stared at him but he wasn’t budging. Hana looked at him then at Brigitte. 

“We both worked for Overwatch for a while. We were friends, and..well I’m honestly out here looking for people to come back and help. Things...have gotten bad.”

Junkrat looked shaken and sat back down and looked over at brigitte. “You was with them and never told us?”

“Was James...was.” Brigitte sighed and looked at the ground, hunched over her knees. 

“So all this time you coulda been arresting us or or...oh. What did you do to get kicked out?”

“She wasn’t kicked out, everyone thought she was dead. We fond Reinhardt’s body and parts of Brigitte’s armour. Brax told us what happened and well...now he’s kind of running everything and it’s bad. I ran looking for outside help since he’s holding Overwatch’s activities over their heads like blackmail.” 

 

Brigitte dropped her cup, only for Roadhog to catch it and place it carefully on the small table. He was quite attached to them. 

“W-what? But how..he’s just the new guy how did this happen?”

Hana sighed. “Everyone was kind of, well beaten down after all that. Mistakes were made and we got over run. Now we’re well...everyone else, is kind of being forced into working for him. Omnics are everywhere.” 

Brigitte looked down again. How was she supposed to help? She was useless last time and Reinhardt was gone. 

“Brigitte, I think we should talk..alone..no offence.” Hana glanced at the other two, Junkrat was about to protest but Roadhog pulled him back and nodded to Brigitte and Hana. The girls got up and headed outside and, just before the door closed, Hana wrapped her arm through Brigitte’s, leaning in close.

Junkrat stared at the door and looked back up at Roadie. “We can’t just let them go like that can we?”

Roadhog looked down at him. “Why not?”

“Cause..cause….what if our Brig wants to go back? What if she don’t need us no more? You saw the looks too right?”

Roadhog looked surprised that the little man picked up on that all at once, guess even he had to be right on occasion. “Uhm..” 

He hadn’t thought about it, he didn’t want to stop Brigitte doing anything she liked but even he had to admit she’d been good for the two of them over the last year or so, and Junkrat had been well, very happy to have her around. They looked after each other. Seeing someone just show up out of the blue from another part of Brigitte’s life was unsettling. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it clearly upset junkrat. “Let’s just see what happens, give them a little space. “

Junkrat crossed his arms and pouted.

_______________________________

Brigitte felt her cheeks burn when hana took her arm and walked with her around the outskirts of Junkertown. It was pleasant in it’s own way, once you got used to it. It was nothing like home though. 

She tried to fill in the silence by telling stories of what she’d been up to and in turn Hana told her how she’d got here and made a deal with the Junker Queen that if she won enough credit in the arena she’d lend out some of her mercenaries to help with whatever was going on in Gibraltar. 

Not wanting to go back to that subject just yet Brigitte asked if Hana was hungry. They ended up going to Koala’s take out, it felt nice and at least it was a distraction. They laughed a little when Brigitte was telling Hana how she first met Junkrat and Roadhog. “I was terrified, this huge guy was just staring at me and out comes the tiniest little pink teacup and. Honestly I was so confused I didn’t have time to be scared anymore. He’s really sweet when no one else is around. From what I’ve heard they got into trouble a lot, but they seemed nice to me.” 

Hana smiled and put her empty bowl aside, Brigitte did the same. She hadn’t felt this happy in a long time. She looked back and found Hana was looking at her oddly, biting on her lower lip and she found her eyes wouldn’t come away, barely managing to look up into Hana’s eyes and she felt her heart explode!

She’d missed Hana so much over the months and seeing her now, looking well perfect and looking at her like that was making her brain short circuit. If it had been only a crush before now it was definitely more. While her heart was racing she tried to think of something to say to avoid looking awkward, or even more awkward. “Hey uh you want to see something cool?” 

Hana looked at her confused for a second but grew curious. “Uh Alright. Lead the way.” 

She took Brigitte’s arm again and followed her back outside, and kept asking where Brigitte was taking her but she kept it a surprise until they had to climb a small cliff. Hana had a little trouble so Brigitte lifted her up, carrying her on her back, feeling Hana’s hands gripping her shoulders tightly she felt a rush and climbed right to the top which overlooked a crater, in which there was quite a bit of greenery. Hana gasped and Brigitte knew that was a good sign. “Hardly anyone comes up here, there’s even fresh water down there, I think it’s from a spring somewhere underground so it’s not even radiated. Cool right?” 

Hana slid off Brigitte’s back and looked around. “That is pretty cool. Like a secret area. Does anyone else know about it?”

Brigitte thought for a moment. “No I think just me and Roadie and Junkrat, though haven’t really asked anyone about it. Want to go check it out?”

The two made their way down, which was a little easier though having to jump from rock to rock. Brigitte caught Hana on the last one which was quite a drop and held her for a moment so they were eye to eye and very close. Brigitte felt her breath catch and Hana just smiled nervously, brushing her hair behind an ear. “Race you to the water.” She jumped down and ran for it and Brigitte chased after her. Hana had gotten a lot faster and she had trouble keeping up with the sprint. 

Hana skidded to a halt just before the spring, smiling at the bubbling water, only to scream when Brigitte collided with her, tackling them both into the water. Hana surfaced first, her hair now soaked and clinging to her face, Brigitte arrived second, taking a deep breath and giggling at Hana. Hana in turn jumped and pushed Brigitte back inther the water by her shoulders. “You! Jerk!” She giggled and let Brigitte up again only to be lifted clean out of the water by the larger girl and tossed into the middle of the spring with a yelp. “BRIGITTE!” Splash! 

Brigitte had to hold herself to keep her ribs from hurting from laughing so much. She glanced around a little worried then something touched her leg and she looked down in time for Hana to leap from the water at her, she caught her and stopped herself falling backwards only to be stunned and locked in place whens he felt Hana’s lips on hers. It felt like the water got much hotter all of a sudden from the heat now coming from her. After a very long moment she kissed back, eyes closing.


	9. Chapter 9

Roadhog caught Junkrat by his belt and held him back from going completely rabid and running down the crater towards the young women. He shouldered the frantic man and slid back down the cliff and dropped Junkrat on his ass, folding his arms over his chest. “Really?” He growled from under the mask at his friend.

He got a “Hrumph!” and a cold shoulder from the smaller man. “How are you not worried Roadie?! You saw, that whippet was all over Brig and and..trying to drown her!”

Roadhog facepalmed so hard Junkrat actually flinched and looked at him. “You’re being so unreasonable right now.”

Junkrat knew it was the truth and tried to lie but one look from the hog man and he sighed and folded his arms again, pouting. “She’s gonna take Brig away I just know it. What are we gonna do then huh? Got something smart to say about that big man?” 

Roadhog sat beside him and thought about it. He liked what the three of them did together, but if Brigitte did leave them he. He drew a blank. What would they do? He loved brigitte too and didn’t want her to leave but, after what they just saw didn’t think it right to try and stop things. He turned to speak but saw Junkrat was gone already and looked up. “I am going to kill you James.” He grumbled and scrambled back up after him to stop him doing something stupid. 

 

___________________________

 

The two had eventually climbed out of the water to dry off a bit, luckily the sun hadn’t fully set and was warm enough to dry them a little. They sat on a rock looking over the small piece of green paradise feeling quite content, at least for the moment. 

Brigitte couldn’t help smiling. She’d wondered for a long time if hana had ever felt the same about her as she had for the Meka pilot. That kiss, surprising as it was, cleared up any doubts she had and could think of nothing else for a while. Hana had moved closer and put her arm around Brigitte’s and held onto her hand, almost afraid to let her go again.

For a while they didn’t speak, simply enjoying each others company. Unaware of the prying eyes getting closer, only to be snagged away by a chain so fast it dislodged quite a few of his explosives, which snapped up high into the air and exploded like fireworks. 

The two looked up, dazzled and confused by the display and turned to each other. Brigitte recognised the explosions but didn’t want to say it out loud. Hana was even more confused and wondered if it was a celebration of some kind going on in the town?

Brigitte almost got up to find out why Junkrat decided to launch explosives at them when she got pinned, albeit gently, to the rock by Hana, and her eyes widened a little at the look on Hana’s face. 

_________________________

Junkrat was struggling to get out of Roadhog’s grip when he noticed the two he’d been sneaking up on were kissing again and he whined behind Roadie’s hand and gave up. He gave a pathetic look to the big man who sighed and this time lugged him all the way back home so he couldn’t cause any more trouble. 

_________________________

The two girls broke apart somewhere around midnight, having lost track of time, having gotten pretty lost with each other. Brigitte shivered from the much cooler night air, and wrapped her arms around Hana tighter, not enough to hurt, but feeling her closer was so much better. 

“Brigitte…”

“Hm?”

“Why didn’t you come back?”

She felt ice drop into her stomach and she looked away from Hana, shame rising up in her throat like bile.

“Brig..talk to me please. Why?”

“It...doesn’t matter.”

Hana pulled away and Brigitte felt the sting, sitting up herself and crossing her legs. 

Hana stared at her like she’d just been slapped across the face. “Doesn’t ma..OF COURSE IT MATTERS!” She stood up, hands balled into fists as she stared down at Brigitte. 

“Do you have any idea how much grief everyone went through? Your family? Overwatch? Me?” Tears were now welling up in her eyes but she was too angry to let them fall and brigitte felt like she was being stabbed in the chest with each word. 

“I can’t go back Hana. If that’s what you want from me I just..can’t.” She couldn’t look her in the eye, she wanted to but was terrified of what she’d see. 

“Can’t? What do you mean can’t?! We needed you? We needed all the help we could get and you were what? Sitting out here getting a tan? And..Tattoos?” She pointed at the new ink on Brigitte’s shoulder and the older girl glared at Hana and stood up. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well I would if you would just tell me!” Hana, though quite a bit shorter got right up to Brigitte, not even slightly scared of her and got into her face. “Or did you get hit so hard in the head you forgot what being a friend means, what would Reinhardt think?”

That struck a nerve and Brigitte snapped back. “I don’t know I’d ask but he’s DEAD HANA!” She hadn’t meant to raise her voice like that and the taken aback look on Hana’s face showed she hadn’t expected that either. She backed up and walked away from the engineer. “Wait where are you-”

“To find someone with the spine enough to help...Have fun in the junkyard.” She snipped back and turned before Brigitte could see the tears running down her face and made her way back out of the crater.

Once Hana was long out of sight Brigitte climbed out from the other side, taking a long walk far, far away from the town. Not wanting to run into Hana again, at least not right now. 

 

It was near dawn when she arrived at what she assumed was another small town, not looking quite as scrappy as Junkertown and much smaller. She sighed and headed for what she assumed to be a bar, it’s neon sign on the brink of failing. 

____________________________

Hana had hung around for a few days after collecting her winnings, though she was under the impression the Queen didn’t like how the last match went, and didn’t exactly invite her back for another match. She wondered about that but took her winnings and began asking around, as carefully as she could for mercenaries for hire. Not many took her seriously so she had no luck. Not till she ran into Junkrat and Roadhog in one of the bars she’d gone to try. The smaller man almost lunged at her like a rabid dog when Roadhog held him back. 

“Where is out Brig? what did you do with her? If you hurt her I’m gonna-”  
“James.” 

Junkrat shut up but was glaring daggers at Hana, who just glared back.

“I haven’t done anything. I thought she’d have gone back to you two.

They paused and looked at each other. “What do you mean? She hasn’t come home in days, we’ve looked everywhere.”

Hana paled, as did Junkrat. All three at once shouted. “WE’VE GOTTA FIND HER!”  
They cleared the bar all together, much to the patron’s annoyance.  
___________________________________________

Brigitte sat down at the bar again, for the third night in a row, ordering the same thing. Some weak imported beer that she didn’t like but it was better than half the other options behind the counter. She’d not said much during her brief stay and watched the small screen above the bar. It looked to be a newscast of some sort, the woman reading out the news spoke about a few topics brigitte didn’t have the strength to care about right now. Until the last topic. 

“And in recent news, the memorial for one Reinhardt Wilhelm and his goddaughter Brigitte Lindholm was put in place near-”

She flinched and looked away, downing her drink and left the bar, unaware she was being followed. She didn’t want anyone recognising her, wishing she’d brought a change of clothes.

She’d made it to a broken down looking highway running through the landscape and began walking back towards Junkertown, something got her attention though. She heard something getting close behind her and spun around and aimed a punch at whoever had followed her, thinking it was a bandit or thug looking to get hands on what little money she had in her pockets. What she saw made her hesitate and blink. 

A serene and...floating omnic had been hovering right behind her and her fist had been gently pushed back to her side by his hand. “Greetings. Brigitte.”

“Wha- what who are you? How do you know my name?” She panicked and took a step back, the omnic made no move to follow and just chuckled at her.

“For one in hiding you do a poor job of keeping your identity secret. But I know you through a description a friend of mine gave me when recounting tales of your time with the crusader. From the sounds of it you held quite a promising future with them.”

She frowned and backed up again. Who could he be referring to? She made to speak but he held up a hand. 

“Miss Song is not my informant if you must know.Though I do know of her presence in the city. She is.”

Brigitte turned to the direction he was pointing then felt a sharp pinch in her arm and looked down at the small dart there and collapsed, feeling nothing as she blacked out, only just seeing a blurry slim figure in a cape and cowl walking towards her. 

_______________________

Hana’s scrappy Mech was keeping pace with the old motorbike with ease, they had been scouring the town for a full day and had extended their search for areas further afield from it. Shouting for their missing friend, Hana jetted up into the air to get a better look around and spotted a town in the distance and pointed it out to the two below her. They raced towards it to ask around, or beat the info they wanted out of whoever was there. 

__________________________

A pounding in her skull made Brigitte realise she was awake. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck but at least she was well rested. She pushed herself up off an old beat up sofa and looked over, seeing the omnic from before, still floating in a lotus position who merely tilted his head towards her. Another figure was sitting beside him on an armchair that had seen better days, sipping on a cup of tea. 

“Ana?!” 

“Hello Brigitte. It has been a while.”

Brigitte stood up and felt herself sway, rubbing her arm where Ana had darted her. “What..what’s going on why did you do that?”

“Would you have come with us if I had asked?”

She shut her mouth and looked away. Ana frowned. “I thought not.”

“You’re not going to drag me back are you? Is that why you’re here?” She asked, looking around the room for a way out. It looked like more of a shed than anything else. 

“That is not why we are here no. and we won't force you to go back. As much as I’d like to know why you didn’t come back I won't ask you that either. “

This confused Brigitte and she sat back down, feeling a little more at ease despite herself.

“Why knock me out and bring me here then?”

Ana chuckled. “I saw you try to punch my new friend here and thought you needed to calm down. I may have overdid it a little.” She admitted. 

Brigitte looked at the omnic who waved.   
“Zenyatta at your service, Lady Brigitte Lindholm.”

Brigitte blushed at the unneeded title and ran a hand over her face, pushing her hair aside. “Sorry about that, I thought some thug was following me.”

“No harm done, all is forgiven.” She nodded to him and looked back at Ana.

“So what now? You going to keep me here or let me go back to Junkertown?”

Ana thought for a moment, picking up her teacup again and finishing it, slowly enough to make Brigitte mildly annoyed.

“You can go back if you wish. We won't stop you, I do however think it best you stay here for the rest of the day, rest properly and then be on your way.” She then stood up and picked up the long sniper rifle she’d been known for and looked to zenyatta. “I will take first watch my friend.” Zenyatta nodded as Ana left the shack to who knows where.

The silence was awkward and brigitte felt antsy, wanting to go back right away but, she still felt a little woozy from the sleep dart. She looked at Zenyatta who was a bit closer than she last saw him and jumped. “Gah! Don’t do that.”

The Omnic chuckled and leaned back again, giving brigitte some space. “Quite jumpy. Something on your mind?”

“A few things…”

“That you do not wish to share?”

“Not really.”

Silence grew once more, but Zenyatta broke it this time.

“You feel much guilt and shame, with many questions you do not yet know the answers to.”

She stared at him, finding it creepy he knew that. 

“You are a fighter am I correct?”

“No..not anymore. I..fix things.”

“Not everything.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked him, growing irritated and tensed up. The monk just tilted his head.

“Merely an observation. Would you like to spar? We shall see if there is still a fighter in you.” 

She looked confused, but the alternative was doing nothing. “Fine.”

________________________

Brigitte found herself getting way too familiar with the taste of dirt as she was thrown to the ground over and over. Zenyatta moved way too quickly while looking like he did nothing at all. 

“You are focusing too much on how you fight Brigitte, not on the why.”

She picked herself off the ground and sighed, spitting out the dirt in her mouth to one side. “Is this supposed to teach me some sort of lesson?”

“Are you learning anything?” He asked back, she could feel the smugness even if she couldn’t see it. 

She went on the attack again, and found herself face down in the dirt once again. 

“You are holding onto something heavier than the armour and shield you are used to. How do you expect to get anywhere like that?” He asked as she got up again. 

 

“I’m not..”

“Do not lie to yourself. You have not let go, you are still fighting a battle you have lost.”

She paused and blinked at him, thinking and feeling a twinge of pain when she could see Reinhardt’s fface before is vanished over the cliffside. 

“Whatever it is, it has happened, and you will need to face it. It will be more painful the longer you leave it.” 

She looked at the omnic, hating how he was making sense but it was painful right now. She brushed the dirt off of herself and turned to head back inside. However a sharp pain hit her between the shoulder blades and almost forced her to stumble over. She turned and looked back, his open palm still in position from the shove he’d given her, his feet now on the floor. 

“I did not say the session was over.”

“I’m not going to fight you.” She had to bring up her arms to defend from a spinning kick that knocked her sideways, but kept herself upright. She glared at the omnic.

“Then this will be an easy victory for me will it not? If you choose not to defend yourself.”

He came at her again and she tried avoiding him but he kept landing blow after blow and she was getting tired. She began to fight him back, wishing she had her weapon and shield with her. 

“I thought you weren't going to fight back Brigitte? Was that a lie too?”

“You.ow! Left me no choice.” She pushed his leg away only to take a palm to the forehead, knocking her backwards. She put her left arm in front of herself and yelled as she jumped forward, knocking the omnic back with a tackle. 

Zenyatta hovered and tilted his head towards her. “You are beginning to see. We all have battles we must fight. The only choice we get is how. Doing nothing...leads to nothing.” 

She stared at him and sighed. “Can we stop now?” 

He nodded and brought her back inside, and excusing himself to go releive Ana of her watch, after handing Brigitte an ice pack and cold drink from a small cooler in the corner. 

After he left Brigitte held the ice pack over her various bruises, and drank the odd drink, after reading the can found it was iced tea. She finishes it off quickly and looked for something to do. 

A pile of newspaper clippings caught her attention so she moved over to the small table they were scattered on and picked on up at random. It made her heart ache, it was a photo of the funeral for Reinhardt and herself, seeing familiar faces of her family and friends all gathered in the photo near his memorial.

She put it aside and picked up another, much older looking one. She checked the date and saw it was around the time she’d been with reinhardt traveling the world. 

“...exclusive interview with retired overwatch agent Reinhardt…”   
She read a little further down and felt tears well up in her eyes.

“..Has been an excellent squire. It has made me proud to have her at my side. Ijust know one day when I can no longer fight the world will be in good hands. A Lindholm she might be, and every bit as stubborn and clever as her father. But I see she has taken after me too. She has the spirit of a knight, no a paladin even!..” She put it down unable to read more, burying her face in her hands. Not quite crying but she felt she didn’t deserve those words from her godfather. 

She felt nothing like him right now, ignoring her urge to help had been painful, she’d tried to do what she could here, but at the cost of what? 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sat there but eventually she moved, gathering her resolve and made a break for it, heading back to Junkertown to collect a few things she was going to need, unaware of the smiling Ana watching her from the shadows.


	10. 10 Return of the shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost finished, I'll add an epilogue soonish.

The bar had been trashed, mostly by the two men who were clearing the place looking for brigitte. Hana however was leaning over the bar and talking to the cowering barman. “Please we don’t mean her harm she’s our friend we need to find her and I’ll get those two out of your hair. Please?” She begged him but he just whimpered and curled up under the bar further. She sighed and leaned back when Junkrat came up to her. 

“This is all your fault!” 

“Excuse me?”

“You said something and scared her off didn’t you! 

“Jamison..” Roadhog interjected in a warning tone.

“What?!” Hana knew she’d upset Brigitte but she had every right to do so, she didn’t feel good about it but be damned if she’d let this idiot blame her solely for it. She was about to throw a comeback at him when they were pulled apart by the big man and kept more than an arm’s length away. 

“Will you two cut that out. This isn’t helping. Brigitte can’t have gotten far, she didn’t take the bike.”

They turned to leave when their path was blocked by an omnic in the doorway. He raised his hand to wave. “Greetings.” 

_____________________

Brigitte had sprinted all the way back, exhausted and soaked with sweat and bruised to all hell. She ran through the town, pushing people aside and shouting back apologise before she got to the arena workroom. She began to work furiously getting the armour fixed and actually making an effort to clean it up. 

A few people asked her what was going on and freaked out when she took the suit outside of the arena, which normally was not allowed. She left the town gates before they could slam shut and headed to what had been her home for nearly two years. She found it odd the boys weren't there but grabbed her things and a few snacks and drinks for the trip back. She sighed and thought about leaving a note. She scribbled something on Junkrat’s chalkboard to say where she was going and not to worry. Then turned to make her way to the nearest docks.

__________________________

Junkrat was on the verge of having a fit seeing an omnic but Roadhog still held him under one arm like an angry football. A very angry slightly smoking football. 

Hana spoke up first. “Can we help you? We’re in a hurry.”

Zenyatta looked at her and nodded. “I do not require assistance but I believe I can help you find who you’re looking for.”

“You know where Brigitte is?”

The three stared at the omnic and even Junkrat shut up.

“I believe I do. She is currently making her way to the docks, I think she has come to the conclusion she is needed somewhere important.”

He could not display emotion but Hana could have sworn he’d smiled for a moment. Her eyes lit up excitedly and looked back at the other two. “We need to go with her before she gets too far ahead of us.”

“What We're Not helping you you pipsqueak!” Junkrat growled then Roadie squeezed him, making it feel like his ribs were going to crack. 

“You like brigitte right?” Hana challenged him. 

“We love Brig..ah Brigitte. She’s like a really cool sister…” He admitted and flopped in Roadhog’s arm, giving up. “Alright alright let’s go, but no getting us arrested or we’re scrapping your mech.”

Hana grinned. “You can try. But stick with me and you’ll be fine, let’s go!” 

Zenyatta moved aside as the three raced off back to their vehicles and was soon joined by Ana. “We should head out too, maybe we can get there before hand and help out?”

He nodded and followed her to where her personal jet was, quite a way outside of town. 

 

_________________________________________

 

Brigitte had to talk the captain down to a price she could afford but he agreed to let her onto the ship heading to Spain. It wasn’t perfect but was as close as she could get.   
She grabbed a bag with her things in and heard someone calling her name as she was about to step ontot he ship. She saw Hana’s mech and Roadhog’s bike heading right towards her. She had to jump back onto the dock and slammed her shield down, digging her heels into the wood to keep them from falling right off the end. She felt her back foot just dip off the edge but a large tattoo’d hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “Where do you think you’re going?!” The masked man asked her. She blinked and tried to answer. 

“Yeah think you’re gonna go on a crazy adventure without us?” Junkrat pouted, getting right in her face then pulled her into an awkward hug. 

She smiled and hugged him back then pushed the Bike away from the edge of the docks, to roadhog and Junkrat’s surprise. She wasn’t sure how she managed to stop the thing but was glad she had. She looked over at Hana, her smile failing, not sure how the pilot would react. Though the mech looked empty and she felt arms go around her neck and Hana appeared right in front of her face, at first looking angry, cheeks red and puffed out before she was suddenly kissed, quite hard by the girl and had to hold onto her to keep Hana from sliding off her. 

She heard Junkrat make a noise only to be pushed into the sidecar by Roadhog.   
Hana let go of her eventually and she looked at her sheepishly, then yelp when Hana flicked her on the nose pretty hard. “That’s for worrying us you big jerk. We’re coming with you. I want to kick Brax’s ass so bad right now.” 

Brigitte smiled once more and looked over at the captain who was running a hand over his face. “Fine get on I am running late as it is.”

__________________________

For the four days on the ship, Brigitte and Hana worked around the clock upgrading and fixing up what they could of their respective suits and Roadhog’s bike, with his permission of course. The boys had been keeping clear of the two while they worked as clearly they just got in the way and the pair were quite a formidable duo when they were on the same side. 

 

Between the pair of them and what supplies they could find between them all three mechanical pieces were in brand new condition, or as close as they could get. Some paint and polish brightened them up, and with some input from Junkrat, surprisingly had a bit of extra firepower. Or at least the bike and Mech did. Brigitte had other plans, she’d sort of borrowed some of Ana’s ammunition before she’d run back and put them into some of her armour packs so she could be more helpful with injuries during a fight, along with another little addition she refused to tell Hana about just yet.

Once the ship had docked the captain shooed them off before daybreak, not wanting to be caught bringing people into the country without proper papers and whatnot, but wished them luck with whatever they were doing. 

 

The women waved him farewell while the guys wheeled their bike up onto the road. “So where we going?”

Brigitte and Hana grinned at one another and Brigitte grabbed onto the ring on the back of Hana’s mech. “Follow us.” 

The four sped off leaving the docks and the town as quickly as they could manage. When they stopped for a night’s rest a few towns over they watched the local news and read the papers, looking for clues as to what was going on, hoping for something. Seemed nothing had been reported so far and they were not sure if that was a good or bad thing. 

They stayed in one room, and Roadhog moved the second bed to the opposite end of the room, giving the women their privacy, Junkrat joined him, and slept at the foot of the bed like a weird hairless cat. 

Hana sat on the bed next to Brigitte and watched with a half amused expression before turning back to Brigitte, after she felt the engineer had finished getting dressed for sleep. “Does he always do that? The little man?”

Brigitte looked over and smiled. “Yeah,those two are very close, though they won't admit it in public. I’ve seen him sleep on Roadie’s belly too, he ends up on the floor most of the time though.” She chuckled quietly and laid back, almost jumping when she felt Hana snuggle up to her under the sheets, holding onto her middle. She put her arm around her and kept the other behind her head. 

She couldn’t sleep, not for long anyway. She was nervous, thinking how they were going to help the remaining Overwatch team at the base. If it was as crawling with omnics as Hana said, it was going to be difficult, not to mention the turrets in place, if they were reprogrammed, they were going to have a hell of a fight on their hands. The ceiling however offered no solutions, and merely went from blue to orange and back again as cars drove past them in the street. 

She looked down and saw Hana’s head on her chest, looking adorable and quite peacefully asleep. She didn’t want to move in case she woke her up, wishing they could stay like that every night. She felt her heart hammer in her chest for a few moments before calming down again. She moved her arm just so Hana wasn’t leaning so awkwardly and was practically on top of her. Satisfied she hadn’t woken her Brigitte felt sleep overtake her finally. 

______________________________

The familiar mountain loomed before them quite a way away. Brigitte watched with narrowed eyes, spotting quite a lot of those odd omnics crawling around the grounds. This looked bad, she could see the turrets still active and turning slowly, scanning the grounds with searchlights. 

“They’re not automatic, the omnics are controlling them. Torbjorn refused to give Brax the codes for them.” Brigitte sighed in relief then looked at Hana. “He’s still alive, last I was here. He is locked up though.” 

That made her worry again but she looked back at the situation before them. It was dark and looked like it was going to rain soon. She wasn’t sure she liked that. 

“So how we gonna get past the metal heads?” Junkrat asked, poking his head up between the two, shoving a donut in his mouth and making a mess. The two glared at him and shushed him, dropping back down. 

“We’re going to need a distraction to draw them away so we can get in.” Brigitte offered, then looked at Roadhog and Junkrat and their bike. Hana followed her gaze and a grin spread across her face. 

Junkrat raised a brow and looked at the two of them and spoke up with his mouth full. “What’s with that look?” 

Roadhog sighed and put the key in the ignition and grabbed the smouldering little man. 

“Hey!”

“C’mon James, you’re the best distraction we have, I know you two can do it.” Brigitte begged him, giving him the puppy dog eyes and he made a face.

“Alright but what on earth do you expect us to do?” 

______________________________

 

The omnics all spun around as the sound of a heavy engine approached, and music from Dance Dance titan boomed from the bike's speakers at such a volume it got the attention of everything this side of the base and then some. 

Junkrat was holding up a megaphone and singing very very badly along with the song and firing off his grenades into the crowd of omnics which began chasing them as Roadie swerved the bike around, following the route brigitte had told him to go. Avoiding the turret fire. 

Hana and brigitte took this time to fly over head and landed on one of the catwalks leading deeper into the base, going through the hangar. “Why is there a space shuttle right in the-”

“No time Briggite, come one.” They stuck to the shadows, but were still clanking some as they walked, luckily there was some noise from the omnics to cover it a bit. 

“Where are they keeping everyone?”

Hana frowned. “Not entirely sure, last message Winston managed to send, it sounded like they were underground in one of the storage rooms.” She looked at Brigitte.

“See if you can find them and get them out, I know your mech will be better for busting down doors.” Hana looked like she was going to argue but the determined look on Brigitte’s face told her not to and she nodded. 

“Be careful, and wait for us if you can...what are you going to do?”

“I will...I’m going to find Brax.”

Hana looked worried. 

“I promise I’ll try not to do anything until you gather the others. Keep in contact...here take some of these.” She pulled out some of her armour packs and placed them in the cockpit with Hana. “Just in case anyone is hurt. Should protect you for a few minutes, enough to get away if you have to.”

The ways he spoke made Hana think that Brigitte thought they might not win. She nodded never the less and opened the front window of her meka and leaned forward, taking one last kiss for luck and headed off towards the storage vaults. 

Brigitte sighed and pulled on her helmet. The design quite familiar to her and most likely to anyone who worked here. 

She did her best to remain quiet as she made her way to the main part of the base. Watching from the top of the pile of storage containers and crates covered by a tarp. 

She could see the glow from the reception area and glared. She could see Brax talking to two women just behind the doors and wanted to leap into action but couldn’t. She’d made the promise to wait. 

_________________

Hana had to blast her way through corridors of omnics to get to where she needed to go. She could hear some voices further down one once she’d started firing and boosted down the narrow tunnel till she crashed through the doorway, smashing several omnics into the floor.

Several people all jumped up, unarmed but ready to fight nonetheless. 

“Miss Song?!” She heard Angela shout and run over to her. “What how did you?”

“No time, we gotta get out of here now. Is everyone alright?”  
The group crowded around her, and after trying to get them to listen she gave up hurrying them and explained as quickly as possible what was going on. Some were in disbelief, others shocked. 

Lena piped up. “We gotta get Torbjorn! I’ll do it, I know where he is!”   
Hana smiled and gave her one of the armour packs Brigitte had given her. 

Angela spotted it and looked at Hana. “She’s really alive?” With a nod from the young woman angela smiled and pulled herself together. “Let’s go then. Jack!” 

The soldier nodded and moved with them, charging ahead to find where their weapons were being kept, shouldering into room after room. 

________________________

Brigitte could strangle Junkrat when he and Roadhog came charging past her on the road, shooting back at the now depleted swarm of omnics and alerted the trio in the headquarters. Two of them vanished leaving bRax alone and glaring out at the scene in front of him. The Scrappy duo were wheeling around causing a great ruckus and she could see Roadhog take a few bullets to the shoulder and start losing control of the bike. She couldn’t do nothing watching her friend get hurt and she charged, just as the team was rounding the corner and saw, a large armoured suit and shield leap from the building into the thrall. 

Brigitte smashed and charged her way close to Roadhog and snapped one of her armour packs out of their case at him. It stuck to his arm and a flicker of yellow covered him and his wounds began to heal and a few bullets bounced off the small shield it gave him. He gave her a thumbs up and sped behind her taking shots at the omnics with his scrap gun, laughing darkly as he did so. 

Brigitte only just raised her shield in time to block a turret now firing at her, which was swiftly blown up by a well placed mine that had been frisbee’d at it. She began marching towards the double doors, locking eyes with brax who looked only mildly concerned until she stepped into the light,then she saw the look of panic on his face and he ran. She followed, boosting through the doors. 

___________________________

 

“Was that?”

“Reinhardt?”

“Impossible”

“Hana what’s going on?”

Hana sighed and turned back. “I told you I brought friends, just focus we need to help.”

The group dispersed and started fighting the omnics back with the strange men on the bike. 

Hana however saw where brigitte was going and boosted herself after her to help out. 

She rounded the corridors trying to keep track of where brigitte had gone only for her Meka to stop working. She pulled and pushed and tried to get it back online. A giggle behind her alerted her that she wasn’t alone and pulled out her pistol.

“Ola.” 

_____________________________________________

Brigitte chased Brax to the upper floors, she’d caught his ankle at one point with her flail but he kept running, that shot should have shattered his ankle, and she wasn’t sure why. 

The chase lead them to the rooftop where he had nowhere else to really run, unless he wanted to jump into the horde down below. He turned back to her and really got a good look at her as spotlights moved up in their direction, but out of range of the turrets. 

“No..no you’re dead..” he backed away from her, and she felt rage like never before welling up in her but she didn’t attack right away. She moved forward towards him and paused when something crashed through the door behind them. Brigitte turned and raised her shield to stop Dva’s Meka from crashing into her and knocking them both off the roof. 

A woman dressed in purple and Lilac lept through the door too and looked curiously at Brigitte before vanishing from sight. Now on edge brigitte lifted up the Meka. “You ok?” 

“Yeah just a few scrapes.” Hana answered and got control of her meka again and stood up, looking around. 

Brigitte looked around as well keeping her back to Hana. Brax looked a little more smug and she looked at him and swung her flail towards him, aided with some small rocket thrusters. He avoided it and charged right back at her. 

She could hear Hana engaging with that strange woman behind her but brax wasn’t giving her time to look. He was swinging a sword towards her, scratching the armour when she couldn’t block it with the shield. One knock with the hilt sent her helmet flying off the roof, and it began to rain, heard. The roof became slippery and had she not been in heavy boots would have skidded off the side when he sent a kick to her side. He was not so lucky and she smashed the flail down into his chest. She thought she’d killed him but a few sparks fizzled around the impact zone and she looked down bringing the flail head back. “What?”

Brax chuckled. “Skin suit, none of you suspected a damn thing.” He chuckled darkly and got up, pulling the ruined skin off of his face, showing the cold blue and grey steel of his actual face. Eyes glowing red through the slits. 

She swung at him again, moving with ferocity that he hadn’t counted on and was edging towards the edge of the roof. After he righted himself the last thing he saw was a blue light shield rushing towards him. 

“Stop. Right there.”

He looked and the shield was inches away and he looked over seeing Moira standing behind Brigitte, her hand outstretched like a claw and draining the life and energy out of the woman, a cruel smile on the taller one’s face. 

Brax moved aside to get away from the edge, and cocke dhis ehad at Brigitte who dropped to her knees when the pulling stopped and Moira held her hand up, smirking. 

Hana noticed brigitte had stopped fighting and panicked. She flipped several switches before the woman fighting her crashed into her window just as she ejected. She slid across the rooftop to brigitte and held onto her arm. “Nerf that hacker!”

Brigitte had a second warning and activated her shield, holding onto Hana and keeping her behind it when the Meka exploded. The bright flash and explosion caused everyone on the roof to cover their eyes and two of the three without a shield vanished before it got to them. Brax was not so lucky and was blasted off the roof, he made a grab for Brigitte but his hand was shot by Hana’s smaller pistol and he fell into the piles of omnics below. 

_____________________

From the ground, the Overwatch team looked up at the explosion and collectively held their breath, when the smoke cleared. 

“Brigitte!”  
“My baby girl!” 

Angela and Torbjorn shouted up at once. Angela activated her wings to go and assist but she spotted a flash of yellow dark through the sky into Brigitte’s back. The girl looked a little rejuvenated and Angela looked behind her, smiling seeing an old and familiar face.

Ana saluted from the container tops, and a pleasant looking omnic waved at the crowd before they both jumped down to join the fray. 

___________

Brigitte didn’t know what happened but felt better, standing up again and bringing Hana with her, she watched as the tall, lanky woman re-appeared from a cloud of smoke and the other flashed into existence beside her. 

“Miss me?” The lilac clad woman waved at Hana who took a shot at her, and indeed missed. “Uh-uh.” 

“Enough Sombra, no need to tease. We should be polite, I’m sure these two have some questions. We should be gracious enough to give them that.”

Brigitte snarled and kept her shield ready.   
“What are you talking about? Who are you people?”

Moira chuckled and bowed mockingly. “I am surprised you do not know me, I used to work for Overwatch myself. You may call me Doctor D’eorain.” She righted herself and cocked her head, looking Brigitte up and down. “You, I know of already. Brigitte Lindholm. Failed squire, runaway. Murderer.”

Brigitte froze, the blood draining from her face. She felt Hana move.   
“What is she talking about brig?”

Moira’s smile only grew more sinister. “And liar too apparently. Does your..girlfriend not know what you did?”

Sombra smirked, seeing what her boss was doing and vanished from sight once more. 

“What are you implying..Doctor?” Brigitte tried not to show that she was shaking, feeling sweat and rain falling down the back of her neck. 

“You know what I am talking about.” Her voice was now suddenly echoing throughout the whole base over the speaker system. The group on the ground were looking up at the roof again, listening. 

“I would like for you to be honest Brigitte, before..”

“AH!”  
“Hana!”

Hana had been grabbed by something and appeared in Sombra’s arms to the side of Moira, holding what looked like a small sub machine gun to the side of her head. Brigitte felt all of her blood run cold right then and her eyes widened with fear. 

“..Before your friend here gives this rooftop a new coat of paint.” She smirked, seeing Brigitte looking terrified, eyes darting between the three.

“Tell me, Miss Lindholm. Who was it that got Reinhardt killed? I am sure everyone here is just, dying to know.”

The world became silent, listening for the answer. Brigitte lowered her shield and flail, looking at this tall woman in disbelief. There was no way, how could she know?

“I..”

“Hurry now, Sombra has never been patient.” 

“It was my fault!” She cried out, flinching as her own words echoed back from the speakers. Too loud for her to hear the murmurs of disbelief from the team below her, but not enough to block the whimpers coming from Hana, or the woman holding the small headset that was broadcasting this conversation. “It’s..It’s not true. Brigitte..”

“It is true…”

Moira smirked, chuckling as she moved towards brigitte, and put that clawed hand under her chin. “Yes it is your fault. You knew it and so you ran like a coward didn’t you.” She squeezed the woman’s cheeks, leaning in awkwardly close. Brigitte glared back but even Hana could see the fight starting to leave her.   
“An overwatch trainee murdering one of their oldest most dearest friends, such a shame.”

“I-I’m not a murderer.”

“Had you listened and stayed put like a good girl dear Reinhardt would still be alive am I correct?”

Brigitte couldn’t say anything,that much was true. 

“Then, you are guilty. However, I have an offer. We could use someone like you, such tenacity, such skill should not go to waste. Why-” She had to become mist to avoid the flail that would have cracked her skull open, appearing a few feet away. Brigitte glared at her, tears and rain pouring down her face as she charged. 

“Never! I am here! I will be their shield!” She screamed, making it echo through the base. Hana managed to kick herself free of Sombra’s shocked grasp and began fighting the woman while Brigitte chased Moira across the rooftop again. 

The woman seemed to be enjoying herself, avoiding the attacks by becoming a puff of cloud. Making the young squire all the more frustrated. She moved her clawd hand and brigitte felt her life being drained away once more, gritting her teeth hard. It felt like someone was boiling her blood from the inside and it hurt. The feeling suddenly stopped and Moira doubled over, one of the tanks on her back shattered from a glowing blue pistol shot. 

Brigitte looked back seeing Hana smiling before her legs got swept from under her and Sombra lept on top of the girl, pinning her down. “Hana!” Brigitte tried to run to her aid but a dark orb knocked her sideways, sending her clattering and rolling towards the edge of the roof. She only just caught the ledge with her right hand, losing her flail in the process. 

Gasps from below made her look down, seeing the overwatch team all looking up at her concerned, while still trying to fight. She looked up and tried pulling herself up but her suit was too heavy to get more than a few inches. She swung her shield arm up, dismissing the light in it to grab on. However, a foot came down hard on her fingers and she screamed, feeling a few of her fingers break under the force. 

“BRIGITTE!” Hana squirmed and tried to get free of sombra’s grasp to help but couldn’t move an inch. She could see the headset on the ground near her foot and glared up at the woman above her defiantly.

A hand caressed brigitte’s face, it made her feel sick as those long nails dragged across her cheek, she could feel blood starting to drop slowly out. 

“Oh dear, this situation looks awfully familiar doesn’t it?” Moira chuckled. “I’ve played with you long enough I think. So would you like to know a little secret?” She leaned in way too close for brigitte’s comfort as she tried to figure out what to do and was slowly losing her grip.

 

Moira reached down and grabbed the metal collar around brigitte’s neck and pulled her up a little so she could whisper into her ear. 

“Reinhardt’s death was planned, and you were quite the pleasant unwitting assistant in that. If I’d been there with Brax I would have offered you a position much sooner. “ Moira blinked, eharing her own voice repeated back from the echoing speakers and turned to Sombra who looked startled as well, and Hana grinning triumphantly as she made a finger gun at her. Moira looked down and saw the headset had been tossed to her feet while she spoke. There was a wave of raging battle cries from below and one loudest of all right in front of her. 

Brigitte’s eyes had widened like saucers when Moira admitted it was her and her group that had been the reason for Reinhardt’s fall. She let out a roar as her boosters opened fully and she used their momentum to push herself up and above the witch of a woman and socked her hard in the jaw with her good hand. The broken one, just barely keeping her shield up. 

Sombra was still on shock and got a kick to the gut from Hana who scrambled away and grabbed her pistol, resuming their fight, however Sombra already had her weapons and got a few shots on Hana before taking any herself.

Hana felt something warm wash over her and looked, seeing a strange pole coming out from Brigitte’s back and orange light was filling the area. She looked down seeing small hexagons of light covering her like extra armour and she grinned. 

Brigitte knew this new addition would come in handy. She could feel her own armour harden and went on a rampage, not giving Moira any chance to defend herself. 

The tall woman hit the wall and her remaining tank smashed, leaving purple and yellow goo to spread out around her and evaporate. She was bloodied and now looking at the armoured woman above her glaring down. 

“Going to kill me Brigitte?” She chuckled. 

Brigitte just glared harder. “As much as I’d really love to. You are under arrest. Your crimes will be dealt with the right way. I won't be a murderer, not for you, not because of you.” 

Moira chuckled and looked behind Brigitte. A bright light was shining onto the scene from a helicopter coming in. 

“You do know, it was not entirely my idea right?”

“What?” Brigitte looked back at her, one arm covering her face from the light. 

“I did not come up with the plan to kill Reinhardt alone. Brax and Sombra were integral to giving their ideas.” 

Moira were unaware of the invisible Sombra nearby having intended on pulling her away but she’d paused to listen. 

“You’d best focus on getting her too, Your friend doesn’t look all that good to me.”

Brigitte didn’t want to fall for it but her concern was greater and she looked, Hana was leaning against the wall holding her side, breathing hard. She made to run to her but was tripped with Moira’s arm grabbing her leg. The helicopter was almost right at the roof now, sending water sideways at them, stinging Brigitte’s face. She could see Sombra appear on the helicopter as it’s door opened and it began to take off. Moira was running and about to leap for it, but Sombra just waved at the soman and the door snapped closed. 

“No! SOMBRA!!” 

The woman clawed at the door but it was quickly out of her grasp, falling several stories to the ground below, swarmed by the remaining omnics who were starting to shut down. 

The helicopter left the base swiftly before anyone could do anything about it. Brigitte ran to Hana’s side and used her last armour pack to help heal the wound on her side. The woman looked up and smiled at Brigitte, Both soaked to the bone and shivering from the cold, carefully made their way back down to the doors. 

______________________________________________


	11. 11 Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far thank you for taking the time and I hope you've enjoyed this little self indulgence of mine as much as I've had fun writing it.

The rain had slowed by the time the women got to the Med bay, and heard hurried footsteps come rushing up behind them. They both turned, arm around one another and sighed in relief seeing that it was the overwatch team and Brigitte’s boys. 

Torbjorn muscled his way through, despite his injuries, new and old, he walked slowly up to them both and Brigitte let go of Hana slowly, nodding to Angela when she took Hana from her and had her sit on a bed nearby. She got onto one knee in front of her father who looked like he was staring at a ghost. She felt tears threaten to fall and she wasn’t sure how he was taking her re-appearance. She got her answer when he threw his arm around her and held her tight. She did the same for him and felt herself being lifted by Roadhog, bringing her father with her and feeling Junkrat hug her through her father. She couldn’t help but start laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Her father not so impressed tried to shove Junkrat away but gave up. 

Barely any words passed between anyone, all too tired, too hurt or just too overwhelmed for talking. Angela treated the worst of people’s wounds and those that could wait, sent back to their rooms for the night. 

Junkrat and Roadhog refused to leave Brigitte and so they stayed in the med bay next to her, sleeping on the floor under some spare blankets. Sometime during the night Hana had joined her and they’d fallen asleep holding one another. 

___________________

 

A few weeks went by while the base was cleared, fixed and filled with Overwatch agents again, this time a more heavy screening let people in so as to not have another incident like that again.   
Once Brigitte and Hana recovered from their injuries they helped with the efforts and finally, were called to a war meeting. Jack welcomed them both, barely raising a brow by them arriving together, holding hands. It had been a shock at first but after what happened this was not something anyone voiced an opinion against. 

“Welcome agents. Glad to see you’re in good condition once again.” 

They saluted and joined the room, sitting at the long table. Jack rattled off one of his long speeches, and most of the room half listened until he got to the good parts. 

 

“..and so, it is with great pleasure, I am awarding both Miss song, and Miss Lindholm with full Overwatch agent privileges and welcome them to our ranks.” there was polite applause for the two who looked a little red faced and quietly acknowledging their praise. 

“Agents, who will be given the code names…” He looked over at Junkrat and Roadhog who were giving him a thumbs up from the doorway, and sighed. 

“Lionforge and Dva.” 

The room was filled with a few giggles but more applause followed. 

“Alright enough.” Jack looked at the two of them, thinking for a moment. “Agents, we have a plea for help, and we will need you two to take your...junkers out on your first mission as a team.”

They both grinned excitedly and accepted without hesitation.

 

____________________________________________

 

Ten years later

Hana woke to an empty bed and got worried for a moment. She looked around and found her fiance had wandered downstairs, already dressed and getting ready to go out.

“Hey Hana..you looked tired so I thought I’d let you sleep in.”

Hana puffed out her cheeks and grabbed her coat, having dressed in a hurry. “I said I’d go, I don’t know how you have the energy to move at all today.” She pouted and grabbed Brigitte’s arm as they left the house together, waving goodbye to Roadhog, who was sitting in the living room playing a video game with Junkrat, who was also wearing a coat, because, “Bloody hell is it always this cold out here?!” 

The two women took a walk up the road, passing by Brigitte’s family’s house on the way. Her siblings and parents came out to greet them, piling into the minibus they now had to own due to the sheer number of them there were. 

Hana giggled and greeted everyone along with Brigitte, receiving hugs from all around.   
Brigitte asked if they were coming with them but her mother shook her head, saying they were going into town first for a few things. She nodded and went on ahead with Hana.

The two arrived at their destination, and Hana held brigitte’s hand tighter, looking up at the statue they’d come to see. An armoured crusader looked down at them through a light blue shield, a little mossy now that it had been here for a time, and a screen rested in the plinth beneath him, showing images of some of his adventures that had been caught on camera. 

Brigitte wrapped an arm around Hana, her eyes tearing up a little as she met the statue’s gaze.

“Hey Reinhardt.”


	12. Bonus chapter! Proposal and wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bonus for you all.

Bonus chapter!

 

“Lindholm! Song! Status reports!” Soldier’s voice crackled over the intercoms, barely heard over the orchestra of gunfire and explosions raining around the team. 

“Taking cover right now. My shield’s down and needs to recharge, also-”

“NERF THIS!” 

“What is Song doing?” 

Brigitte sighed and peeked around the corner and grabbed a retreating Hana into the bus shelter she’d been hiding behind, and held her tight as the explosion from her mech launched several talon agents across the road. 

“We’ll get back to you Jack.” Brigitte took her hand off the coms and looked down at Hana with a half smile and a raised eyebrow. “I’m starting to think you do that on purpose so I can fix it afterwards.”

Hana grinned up at her. “What can I say? You make her look amazing every time. That and there were too many and my guns jammed.” 

More bullets started hitting the shelter, and Brigitte had to duck as a few came through the wall her back was to, holding up her barely charged shield to keep them off of the pair. “Where are the boys? They promised they’d be here.”

Hana ducked around and shot back at the agents, then back inside to reload. “Not sure, said something about a surprise.” Hana grinned up at Brigitte again, making her wonder if Hana wasn’t telling her something. 

They held out a few minutes longer and heard very familiar growls of an old engine, and malicious cackling while things exploded. 

“Well here they are Brig, let’s go!” Hana ran out and began firing again at the now distracted Talon agents. 

Brigitte followed, and cracked her shield into the back of one of the omnic soldiers that had his back to them. “About time, what kept you two?” She shouted over to the pair. 

“Sorry mate, had to pick up somefin important for Ha-OW Some more explosives.” Junkrat rubbed at his ribs where Roadhog had just punched him, then pressed his remote detonator, giggling as several agents screamed and tumbled out from the warehouse building. 

Brigitte gave them both a look but didn’t question them further, seeing as their way in was now opened. “Alright, stay behind me. Hana your other Meka ready?”

Hana checked the device on her wrist. “Almost, looks like it will land any moment. I’ll catch up.”

Brigitte nodded and started running inside, followed by Roadhog. 

Junkrat hopped off the sidecar of Mako’s biek and leaned towards Hana. “Sorry about almos’ blowin the surprise. I rekon she’ll love it!” He giggled madly and pulled a small box from his back pocket to show Hana, opening it showing a bronze band, filigreed with small gold gears, and a diamond set into the top. 

Hana smiled and hugged him, then took the box to stow it safely. “ GG! Thanks Jamie. I can’t wait to ask, I hope it goes well.” 

While it took a moment for the shock of being hugged to wear off, Junkrat grinned and turned slightly pink, not that it was seen under all the soot. “Ya welcome. Though eh don’t mention it to anyone, I’ve a reputation to keep.” He puffed out his chest , looking very proud of himself. 

“Sure. Oh, might want to get out of the way.” 

“Wha? CRIPES!” HE dived as a large pink meka dropped nearly on top of him, scrambling upright again and giving Hana a pouty look of disapproval as she climbed into the machine.   
“Still think your old one looked betta.”

“Hush, Let’s go.” With all the force she had, Hana rocketed forwards, and Junkrat held on with his mechanical arm, screaming the whole way into the warehouse where Brigitte’s Rally began, flagging her position for them. 

Once Hana stopped, Junkrat did not and was flung into the agents currently surrounding the group. “G’day!” He slapped a mine into one of their arms and detonated, flying back to the squad, smoking a bit more than normal.

“Hana assassin up top!” Came Brigitte’s warning, while she swung her flail to keep the crowds back. 

“You got it!” 

Once Hana soared up to deal with them, Brigitte looked over to mako who nodded at her and kept firing at the crowd and tossed a small package to her, which she grabbed after throwing her flail up, pocketing it and catching her weapon again. “You’re the best Roadie!”

“Don’t mention it.” He smiled under the mask and began to rapid fire. 

In a few minutes, there was no one left to fight in the building and it looked like no more reinforcements were on their way and their exit chopper was moving in. 

 

 

“Lindholm!” The comss crackled again.

“Sorry Jack, warehouse now clear, just waiting for Hana to come back.”

“Good. Your rides waiting outside, get the payload onto it. Make sure it’s not rigged before you bring her out.” 

“Yessir.”

Just as she was about to pull the tarp off the cart, Hana’s meka dropped through the ceiling while a jet balck omnic was trying to tear into the cockpit. 

“HANA!” Brigitte ran towards her and bodily knocked the assassin off of her girlfriend, it shook its head and began charging at her, Brigitte stared it down through her shield and got her flail ready but a large hook caught it around the wais and it was pulled back towards Roadhog, who turned it to scrap metal in one shot. He gave her a thumbs up and dragged the rest of it to his bike, along with an over excited Junkrat, who was trying to hide under the pile and watch the two women. 

 

“Ouch, what a loser.” Hana popped open the cockpit and hopped out, being caught by Briggite’s arm. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Brigitte smiled and set Hana on her feet, suddenly feeling a bit nervous. “So uh-”

“I um- uh you go first.” Hana smiled, reaching for her pocket. 

“No no you can go.” Brigitte took the delay as a moment to compose herself, but grew concerned when Hana began patting her pockets looking for something. “You alright?”

“Yeah yeah I just, I had something, it uh uh oh..one sec.” She dived back into her mach, pulling things out and growing more frantic. “No nonono it should be here, uh what did you want to say Brig?”

Brigitte blinked and tilted her head, and cleared her throat, pulling out the package and opening it behind Hana, checking inside the little pink box and smiling. “Well uh I kind of need you to turn around Hana.”

Hana was almost in tears, she couldn’t find the ring anywhere in the meka, and worried it had fallen out during her one on one with the assassin. She wiped her eyes quickly and hopped back and turned, freezing in place seeing Brigitte on one knee and holding the pink box in front of her. Her jaw dropped as it opened, showing a similar coloured ring inside, set with tiny pearls making a little rabbit face. 

“Brig!”

“Hana Song, w-will you marry m-OOF!” Brigitte was knocked flat on her back as HAna lept at her, plastering her face with kisses and what she assumed was many ‘yeses’ in Korean. She giggled and held Hana happily. 

“SHE SAID YES ROADIE! SHE SAI-urf” Junkrat was pushed back into the pile of scrap to keep him quiet, not to ruin the moment. 

 

_______________________________________

 

After months of stressful planning and preparing, and indecision on dress or suit, the day finally arrived. Brigitte was waiting in her changing room with her father, and angela, helping her into one of Reinhardt’s old suits, tailored to her size for this day. She was trying not to tear up thinking about it, and Angela put her hand on her shoulder and straightened out the bowtie. 

“I know he would be so proud of you. Both of you. We all are.” She smiled, and gave Brigitte a tight hug, and Brigitte hugged back. 

“Thank you.” She let go and looked to her dad, who was pretending not to cry himself, by polishing the large claw. When he spotted her looking he smiled. 

“Aye, we are. You ready sweetheart?”

Brigitte knelt down to hug him tight. “Yeah, yeah I’m ready.” 

“Good. Now let’s get out there.”

 

Everyone in Overwatch was attending, the room was packed, the Lindholms were taking up the most space, along with Hana’s Meka team, and her extended family, who were all quite shocked at first but flew out to see her a week before. 

Torbjorn led Brigitte to the front, unable to hide his tears now and took his seat next to his wife, the other side left empty save for a framed picture of Reinhardt, who seemed to be smiling just as proudly. 

After a minute, the music began softly and all eyes turned to Hana, looking stunning in her gown, it was colourful and bright, and Brigitte could not take her eyes off her. She barely heard Zenyatta beginning his speech as she took Hana’s hand, thinking she couldn’t possibly be any happier. 

 

After the ceremony there was a celebration for the ages. Junkrat somehow convinced Jack to let him be in charge of the fireworks, which, other than being a little too loud, were gorgeous colours, and Brigitte suspected he had a helping hand, though she wasn’t sure from who. 

Drinks and congratulations were passed around, and an inhumane volume of cake was consumed. However the brides spent most of the party dancing, and deciding to very quietly slip away with their ‘boys’ for a pre planned escape back to Australia for a few weeks, planning a honeymoon deciding who would be the winner of the scrapbot arena for a while.


End file.
